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♦ 


■ 









after The Night 
Has Passed 


illustrated By ADA L. HALSTEAD 



The Pastime Series— Issued Weekly. $13.00 annually. No. 39 May 12, 1896. 
Entered at Chicago postoffice as second-class matter. 


Chicago: LAIRD & LEE, Publishers 263 Wabash Ave. 








AFTER THE 
NIGHT HAS PASSED 









* 













NATALIE 















AFTER THE 
NIGHT HAS PASSED 


...A NOVEL.., 


BY 

ADA L. HALSTEAD 


Author of “Hazel Verne; or The Death Trust,” Etc. 




(7 



CHICAGO 

LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS 














Copyright, 1896, by 

WM. H. LEE 

» 

(All Rights Reserved) 



Alter the Night Has Passed 




BOOK I 


A Sacred Amulet. 



















After the Night Has Passed 


13CDCDK I. 


A Sacred Amulet. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Cathedral bells were sounding in Merida, signaling 
the sunrise. As the chimes, far-reaching and profound, 
vibrated through the stillness of his hotel apartment, they 
roused Mario Vavaseur, a young Frenchman and scientific 
traveler, to thoughts of a new day’s research. 

Directing an eager glance toward the single narrow 
window of his dormitory he saw that the sun already 
gilded its panes, then upon the entrance of a servant he half 
rose in his hammock to accept the coffee which that per¬ 
sonage had brought him. 

“Stay!” he called after the youth, as he was retiring. 
“How far is it to the ruins of Casa del-?” 

About three miles. Will the senor order a horse or 
volan?” 




10 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“No; I will walk,” the Frenchman said, briefly. 

“But the sun—caliente—much hot!” and as he spoke 
the servant swept his hand significantly across his fore¬ 
head. 

“But,” monsieur persisted, “I shall start while yet the 
sun is low and return in the shade of evening. Pack plenty 
of luncheon in my little hamper there, and bring it to me 
within half an hour.” 

“Si, senor.” 

Despite his eagerness to start upon his exploits, Mon¬ 
sieur Vavaseur, after finishing his toilet, could not resist 
loitering a few moments at his window, which commanded 
an excellent view of the great market place Calle de Hi¬ 
dalgo. Here a number of merchants had already opened 
their arcades, preparatory to. the day’s business. Under 
the somber walls of the ruined castle, which formed a 
semi-enclosure to the market, a score of mule-teams were 
standing, and their owners, farmers, most of whom had 
traveled^ half the night in order to reach the city before 
sun rise, vociferously cried their merchandise, comprised 
chiefly of Indian corn, beans and an assortment of fruits, 
while around them were collected various tradesmen of 
the Calle de Hidalgo, all babbling and bargaining loudly 
in their native tongue. Near the gate of the market-place, 
picturesquely grouped under rude matting canopies, a 
number of girls were arranging petty traffic of rosaries, 


11 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

crucifixes, fruit, flowers and needle-work. Some of these 
native maidens’ faces would have made excellent subjects 
for the pencil, and their ingeniously embroidered cueitles 
and bright serapes gave a bit of agreeable color to the 
picture upon which the eyes of Monsieur Vavaseur dwelt 
with a keen interest, which was chiefly evoked by the 
glimpses it offered of ancient architecture. At the early 
age of twenty-four he had acquired considerable repute 
in certain fields of scientific research, and his presence in 
Yucatan at the time our story opens was in the interest of 
a leading American museum, by which he had been com¬ 
missioned to collect relics from those pre-historic cities, 
obscured in its wildernesses, and holding in silent trust 
their boundless mysteries for solution by such scholars 
as himself. 

Upon the mid-June morning in question our young 
antiquarian, after a brisk walk through the city, during 
which he found much to interest him in the pretty dark¬ 
eyed senoritas, who were here and there visible through 
their grated casements, the mule-teams, with loads of 
hemp, going to market, ramon and grass-sellers—poor 
men and women who had perhaps traveled all night long 
under their heavy sheaves, supported by bands across 
their foreheads, and whose tawny limbs seemed tottering 
from sheer fatigue—he at length turned from Merida’s sub¬ 
urbs into a beaten trail, pursuing its detours leisurely until 


12 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


he arrived at the base of an immense stone pyramid on the 
table of which were massed a series of ruinous walls, parts 
of which still retained their original outlines and were rich 
in sculptural carvings. 

The ruins were supposed to be those of an Aztec tem¬ 
ple, and Indians from the surrounding country flocked 
hither by dozens for superstitious worship of the gods, 
whose heads, long estranged from invisible bodies, made 
ghastly habitation of the place. 

The facings of the temple walls were of polished stone, 
and they presented many carvings in bas reliefs, of which 
some were as beautiful and perfect as Grecian sculpture. 

A flight of stone steps connected with the western fa¬ 
cade, reaching from its base to that of the pyramid. As 
Monsieur Vavaseur cautiously ascended the broken flags 
a group of wild birds, with marvelously brilliant plumage, 
started from some obscurity before him, taking flight in 
mid-air, while two large lizards, alarmed at his step, darted 
away, their scales glittering like over-lapped jewels in the 
sunlight. 

Upon attaining the temple he viewed, through its mol- 
dered apertures, an interior which the ravaging hand of 
time had not so badly confused but that from its chaos 
could still be singled out a broken column, a bit of stair¬ 
way or a fragment of statuary. Standing before the an¬ 
cient sanctuary, than which nothing could have been more 



/ 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 13 

weirdly fascinating, Mario Vavaseur forgot himself as in 
a dream. Its decrepit silence spoke to him of that mysteri¬ 
ous era whose wings had been “spread over cities that 
rose, ruled and dwindled to decay,” whose “people were 
born and gathered to the dust,” leaving to succeeding 
races these monumental ruins with their inwrought, elab¬ 
orate texts, which stoically defied all interpretation. 

After gazing long, abstracted, he passed through one 
of the crumbled archways, and followed the irregular 
angles of the walls, with breath suspended in very aston¬ 
ishment at their relics of splendid art, and impressed with 
the solemn and majestic picturesqueness of his environ¬ 
ment, which feeling resolved itself into a kind of ecstasy 
as he continued to pass in and out the shadows. 

At last he paused before a small elevated platform, which 
he thought must originally have served as a shrine or 
altar-place. The floor was covered deeply with lead-col¬ 
ored dust, and its only ornamentation was a fragment of 
/ carved pillar which might have been designed as a pedestal 
for the support of an idol-brassero (incense burner) or 
massive candelabra. About this was now enwreathed the 
tendrils of a luxuriant vine, whose delicate leaves shone 
like burnished silver in the sunlight, which swathed the 
ancient shrine like a cloth of transparent gold. 

Astonished that such a plant could vegetate in this spot 
of isolation and decay, Monsieur Vavaseur reached out 



14“ 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


his hand and touched one of the shining fronds ere he 
could believe it natural. But its cool, soft texture con¬ 
vinced him. 

“What an extraordinary freak of nature/’ he exclaimed, 
audibly. “The jessamine, as I live!” 

As his voice stirred the heavy stillness of the place there 
was a mysterious sound in the obscurity just back of the 
altar place, hearing which he threw a questioning glance 
in that direction. 

Then he started back with a low exclamation of sur¬ 
prise as he suddenly became aware that he was not alone 
in the ruined temple. 

Immediately beyond the foliated altar, half engulfed 
in shadow, he saw a young girl sitting, her bright eyes 
glowing in the semi-darkness and fixed upon him in a 
strange, half puzzled way. 

After-that first astonished outburst Monsieur Vavaseur’s 
eyes met her own for an instant; then he turned as if to 
go, but the woman rose and hurried from her dusky re¬ 
cess toward him. 

“Monsieur, the stranger, seemed surprised to find a 
jessamine growing on the ancient altar?” 

He paused at the s<$>und of her voice. No sweeter music 
had he ever heard, and her accent was distinctly Spanish. 

He made no response to her query; indeed, he seemed 
to the fair stranger not to have heard, but remembering 























































































AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


17 


the start and pause, she stood flushing with embarrass¬ 
ment at his silence. 

He stood, entranced, his eyes fixed upon the girl’s face, 
round which the sun, as she advanced further into its 
light, reflected a wide aureola, as if claiming her the nat¬ 
ural saint of the shrine. 

The divine Raphael alone could have portrayed the 
wonderful beauty of that face—the fathomless, soul-lit 
darkness of the eyes, the fine cast of the lips, upon which 
sat a serene smile and still a hauteur that at once stamped 
their owner as high bred; the perfect contour of the oval 
face, with its pure and radiant skin, and there is an ideal 
picture by that immortal artist—a painting of a saint, with 
just such a benignant brow and just such a wealth of 
dusky hair as she possessed—Juana Escalante. 

“She is not of earth. She is a heaven-appointed guard¬ 
ian of these sacred ruins,” Monsieur Vavaseur mentally 
told himself. But the black, nun-like robe she wore in¬ 
spired a second conclusion that the maiden was more 
likely a novice from one of the adjacent convents. He 
noticed that the rigid plainness of her dress was unre¬ 
lieved, her sole ornament being a large ebony crucifix that 
hung at her left side from a chatelaine of heavy black-silk 
cord. 

Her jet-black hair was worn in one thick braid that 
almost swept the ground; her head was without covering, 


18 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


but across a broken arch, close to where she had been 
sitting, was thrown a black lace mantilla. 

The dark-blue eyes of the Frenchman seemed possessed 
of a power that drew her own glance from the ground to¬ 
ward them, as a magnet draws the needle, and as they 
stood gazing at one another her breath came a little quick¬ 
ly between half parted lips, then- 

The spell was suddenly broken as a bird flew between 
them with a loud whirr of wings and a shrill note. Her 
eyes went from his face to the foliated pillar, and returned, 
a smile looking out from their dark depths. 

“Perhaps,” she softly ventured again, “perhaps Mon¬ 
sieur will think me eccentric, but I keep and tend the vine 
there, in veneration of the mysterious race whose hands 
wrought all these noble carvings and paintings.” 

Her words, which were intoned with a fervor that made 
them half tremulous, now roused the young scientist from 
his stupor. He blushed at his remissness and for the first 
time uncovered his head before the beautiful girl as he re¬ 
plied, instinctively going back to her first question: 

“I had considered the vine as something extraordinary 
growing on the broken column, but, senorita, I do not 
marvel now that it should thrive and grow so luxuriously 
under your inspiring foster-care. I do not think you ec¬ 
centric. No; I think the incentive that has prompted such 
an undertaking as yours a grand and noble one.” 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


19 


At his words the smile in her eyes broke forth like a sun¬ 
beam to suffuse her every feature with warm radiance. 
She drew nearer him, so near that he could plainly dis¬ 
cern the gentle movement of her bosom as she breathed. 

“Are you afraid of the dark, monsieur?” she asked, 
softly. 

He shook his head negatively, wondering at the strange 
question. 

“Then,” said the girl, “come with me. I will show you 
something far more wonderful than the jessamine. But, 
I warn you, monsieur,” with the sudden uplifting of one 
exquisite white hand, “it is intensely dark and there are 
bats! Should one brush you, don’t get alarmed. Vami- 
nos!” and with a low ripple of laughter she ushered him 
from the ruined chapel through a labyrinthine passage, 
whose heavy darkness was instinct with insect life, and 
which led—he knew not whither. 



20 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER II. 

They emerged duly from the mysterious corridor into 
open space again, and as he glanced about him the French¬ 
man could not repress a cry of amazement. On every 
side he beheld beautiful blooming flowers. Clambering 
over broken walls were riotous wealth of passion-vine, 
brilliant with a myriad stars of flame and purple; delicate 
species of plants grew in fragments of pottery; smilax 
wreathed itself about old colmuns, while here and there 
Castilian roses blushed, and banks of clematis started up, 
showing purple constellations in firmaments of cool, dark- 
green foliage. As he breathed the elixir of compounded 
perfumes which freighted the air, Monsieur Vavaseur’s 
pulses thrilled with a strange, sweet ecstasy. 

“Is this an enchanted kingdom, senorita?” he asked, 
when he could command his voice to speak. And he 
turned radiantly to the maiden, who had watched the ex¬ 
pression of his face with lustrous eyes and with a rich 
color on her cheek, which bespoke her satisfaction at hav¬ 
ing pleased the stranger. 


AFTER THE NIGIIT HAS PASSED. 


21 


“Oh, no, monsieur,” she answered; “it is not enchanted. 
These flowers are forced to grow only by the most ardu¬ 
ous and persevering care. I tend them regularly each 
morning. I have nurtured this little garden since I was a 
child, as a tribute to the unknown race whose feet once 
trod the soil upon which it grows. Not a living soul in 
Merida knows of the existence of my sacred garden. No 
one has entered here save my mother, my grandmother 
and yourself, monsieur. But in a few days I am going 
away, and then my flowers will all perish for want of care, 
and gradually these ancient walls will crumble upon and 
bury them forever.” 

As she paused Monsieur Vavaseur saw the heavy tear 
that trembled for an instant upon her eyelash and then 
was furtively brushed away; he remarked also the tremor 
of her lips and the nervous manner in which she caught 
up her crucifix and toyed with it. 

“Merida, then, I take it, 'has been your home, always,” 
he said, somewhat clumsily, moved by her words and 
visible emotion. 

“Yes,” she answered; “I was born here. My mother 
came to Merida during the time of the war; and afterward 
my grandmother came from France to live with us. But 
now they are both dead. I buried my mother just a fort¬ 
night ago, and her grave is the dearest thing left to me on 
earth. But in a few days I must sacrifice even this. 1 


22 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


am going to Mexico, where, in the city of Colima, lives 
my only known relative, a maiden aunt, with whom I am 
to make my future home. Oh, monsieur, I had rather 
they would lay me over in the church-yard, beside my 
mother, than go there!” 

The speaker ended with a visible sinking of the voice. 

He wondered silently at her words, but presently she 
pursued in explanation: 

“My aunt has always been a rigid church-woman, and 
it is her wish that I should become a nun. I could never 
be that! Besides, I am afraid of the earthquakes and the 
volcano. Some wise men, you know, have predicted that 
all the cities and towns adjacent to the great crater of 
Colima will some day share the horrible fate of Pompeii.” 

She paused again, and, grasping her crucifix closer, 
fixed her eyes, instinct with appeal, upon her companion’s 
face. 

“But, senorita,” Monsieur Vavaseur observed, in a tone 
of cheerful reassurance, “there are men—cranks—who are 
always ready to prophesy the most unwarranted issues. 
There are numerous volcanic mountains in the world, and 
Colima, I dare say, is riot more apt to resolve itself like 
Vesuvius than the least formidable of them. As to earth¬ 
quakes, why, science has granted that the actual activity 
of a crater is a safeguard against them. People living in 
the vicinity of a volcano become anxious if several mo'hths 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 23 

elapse without an eruption occurring. Think,” he added, 
with an enthusiasm assumed for her sake, “how grand it 
must be to witness fire, smoke and lava issuing from one 
point of a mountain while snow crowns another in im¬ 
maculate whiteness!” 

“I have often fancied the spectacle,” replied the other 
calmly. “Aunt Dolores has written us graphic descrip¬ 
tions of what she calls the ‘White Priest, with Tongue of 
Flame.’ But the picture only inspires me with unspeakable 
dread. Thank you, monsieur, but I cannot be resigned 
to the thought of going to Mexico. If they would but 
suffer me to remain here, by her grave, I could support 
myself. Oh, you cannot possibly conceive how I loved 
my mother! My father, Jose Escalante, fell at Buena 
Vista in that awful time of blood-shed. The city of Vera 
Cruz being then invaded by the enemy, my mother in very 
terror fled to the peninsula. That was before I came ifito 
the worlds Always I have had only my darling mother as 
parent. I have seen my aunt Dolores but once in my life, 
at which time she so impressed me with her austere piety 
that I have always thought of her with instinctive fear. 
I am sure I should die of sheer rebellion if placed under 
her rigid guardianship. I,” she went on, her beautiful eyes 
lustrous 1 with the fervor of her words, “I love air, sunlight, 
the blue sky, the freedom of the broad, fair fields; I love 
all things pertaining to nature, monsieur, even to the in- 



24 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


sects which to most people are formidable. She—Aunt 
Dolores—loves only her chaplet and crucifix. She would 
compel me to become one of those black-veiled priestesses 
who bury themselves from the world. She would force me 
to that dread existence, when God endowed me with a na¬ 
ture whose whole strength calls for freedom of life.” 

As the Frenchman listened to her simple, though elo¬ 
quent argument, a strange brilliance fired his dark eye. 

“Have you friends in Merida with whom you could con¬ 
tinue, for the present?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Juana Escalante answered. “I have many 
friends, kind friends, but” (the patrician lips wreathing 
themselves just a trifle), “upon them I would not cast 
myself in dependence. My mother was a Frenchwoman, 
of proud and ancient blood. For years we were very 
poor, but even to those who knew her most intimately she 
never confided the nature of her circumstances. I am like 
her. I would suffer the bitterest privations ere I would 
accept charity from the hands of my friends. But I have 
been educated at a convent. I know several languages. I 
could teach.” 

There followed a heavy pause, and then she spoke again, 
mistaking the abstracted expression of his face for weari¬ 
ness. 

“I am certain you will pardon me, monsieur, for having 
so inflicted upon you my grievances. But I was so lonely 




AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 25 

and my confidence went out to you instinctively, as to a 
friend. Friends, you know, sometimes come to us out of 
the silence, whose existence we did not dream of before.” 

Accustomed as Mario Vavaseur was to women of the 
world, many of whom skillfully mask their true natures 
behind clever sophistries in order to coerce men’s wooing, 
he instinctively recognized the maiden before him to be 
as pure in soul as one of the flowers of her sacred garden. 
He felt her to be almost too immaculate a thing for him to 
touch. Yet at her last words he drew nearer her, with 
extended hand. 

“You are right, Senorita Escalante,” he said, as she 
yielded her own to its warm clasp. “I, Mario Vavaseur, 
have come a friend to you out of the silence. I have been 
looking for you for years.” 


26 


AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER III. 

His voice sounded with a soft tremolo now. Senorita 
Escalante raised her eyes quickly to his face, and there 
was in them a look of grave wonderment. . 

Perhaps it was the confusion she felt in striving to find 
a meaning for his last words. “I have been looking for 
you for years.” Perhaps it was some unfamiliar sensa¬ 
tion telegraphed to her outlooking soul from his own that 
caused her to almost instantly avert her glance and fix it 
toward the passion flowers, while a wave of scarlet rushed 
over her face with such sudden velocity that when it. re¬ 
ceded it swept away the natural color of cheek and lip, 
leaving them quite pale. 

Had she been conscious of his mental soliloquy at that 
moment the hot tide might have rebounded to arrest the 
succeeding chill and the trembling she felt half ashamed of. 

She stood, striving with all her might to conquer the 
strange, weakening force, while the young antiquarian 
meditated: 


AFTER TIIE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


27 


“And. it is thus, in this isolated part of the world, at a 
most unexpected moment, that I have come suddenly face 
to face with my ideal woman! When I entered these ruins 
an hour ago love was as remote from my mind as the sa¬ 
cred fires of Vesta are remote from earth. Yet have I 
walked straightway into Eros’ web, and I find it so en¬ 
chanting that I shall make no attempt to extricate myself 
from the mystic skeins. This woman is beautiful, refined, 
educated, proud, pure. The corrupting blasts which are 
forever sweeping through the world have never touched 
her. She has the soul of a saint. I want her for my wife. 
But I am too impetuous. My words have frightened her. 
She is trembling. She is on the verge of tears!” 

Observing this all at once, he hastened to say in a com¬ 
placent tone: 

“Then, Senorita Escalante, as acknowledged friends, 
will you let me hope for your companionship on some of 
the expeditions which I have planned for my sojourn here? 
I wish to investigate certain scientific subjects in this sec¬ 
tion of the peninsula, especially ornithology. You, I take 
it, must be familiar with the haunts of birds hereabouts?” 

“Oh, yes,” the young girl said, her face resuming some 
of its natural brightness, “and at any time I will go with 
you, monsieur. Not very remote from here are located 
some ruins which are noted as the resort of certain rare 
birds. Then, along the lagoon are to be found the egret, 

t 


28 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


the ibis and frequently the cormorant. But, Monsieur 
Vavaseur, it is not necessary for you to go beyond this old 
temple in order to commence your ornithological re¬ 
searches. Birds build their nests amid these very walls, 
and I know them all quite well. Should you like to begin 
at once?” she asked. 

He consulted his watch. 

“Why!” was the surprised exclamation. “Would you 
have believed it to be almost noon?” Then: “I have 
brought some luncheon in my hamper here—turtle meat, 
honey and sweet grape-juice. Will you do me the honor to 
join me in the dispensation of these? Good! and this, a 
veritable Elysium for our feasting place. Then, the birds!” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


29 


CHAPTER IV. 

Colima lay brilliant under the sunset one July morning, 
when, sitting in the veranda of the Casa Escalante, Dona 
Dolores drowsed over her chaplet and crucifix. 

At intervals she would start from her lethargy to cross 
herself and tell her beads, and it was during one of these 
half wakeful moments that her devotions were abruptly in¬ 
terrupted by a voice saying beside her, in Spanish: 

“Dona Dolores, a letter for you.” 

“A letter!” the pious woman repeated, and, letting fall 
her rosary, she took it from the hand of her trusted serv¬ 
ant. 

As she opened the envelope and commenced to read the 
missive Felipe noticed that her lips grew ghastly pale, 
while the hand that held the paper shook as with palsy. 

Presently a cry of angry surprise escaped her. 

“Married! Juana Escalante married?” 

Then she fixed her eyes upon her servant with a look 
that terrified him. 



30 


AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Felipe,” she said, or rather shrieked, “go you at once 
and bring Padre Baptiste to me! Tell him to come 
promptly, that something dreadful has happened. Go!” 

The boy was off like a roe to do her bidding. 

During his absence Dona Dolores paced restively up 
and down the long veranda, her hands clasping and un¬ 
clasping themselves in the excess of her emotion, and re¬ 
peated supplications to the Holy Virgin escaping her. 

She did not cease her violent promenade until at length 
quick, heavy footsteps were heard crossing the paved 
court. Then, ere the priest had gained the veranda steps, 
she rushed forward to meet him, crying, frantically: 

“The blessed saints help us now. O, Father! Such 
news! It will kill me, it will kill me!- Read!” and, thrust¬ 
ing the letter into his hand, she resumed her former seat, 
while Padre Baptiste ensconced himself in a chair near by. 
Opening the letter he glanced at the heading. “From 
Merida,” he quietly observed, then proceeded to read lei¬ 
surely to himself. 

Dona Dolores watched his every expression with keen 
eye; and she could have shrieked aloud in sore rage and 
disappointment, when she saw the serene smile that cross¬ 
ed his smooth-shaven face, as he concluded the perusal 
of the letter. 

“Well, Dolores, thy niece, Juana Escalante, is married, 
and what of that? More than that, it has been a very sud- 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 31 

den departure,” calmly asked the priest, as he removed 
his spectacles and proceeded to carefully wipe them. 

“What of that? Are you mad that you question what 
of that?” screamed the enraged woman, laying vehement 
hold of the letter he proffered back to her. “Why,” she 
went on in breathless passion, “the girl has married a 
man with whom she was acquainted but a fortnight. 
Juana Escalante is a culpable fool! The man is an im¬ 
postor, a thief, a villain! I shall at once begin proceed¬ 
ings to have this marriage annulled! Who, beside a base 
adventurer, would seek to wed a girl without the knowl¬ 
edge and consent of her legal guardian? And she only 
a single month an orphan! I say. Oh, Padre Baptiste, it 
is an outrage. I shall go at once to the court-” 

The priest raised his hand, thus interrupting the speaker. 

“Soft, soft, O Dolores,” he softly admonished. “Thou 
art absolutely without power to act in this case. Thy niece, 
I understand, is of age. Moreover, she is legally wed, 
and the letter from her husband bespeaks him a man of 
worthy character. Monsieur Vavaseur asserts that they 
were married by a priest of the holy Catholic church, and 
that their union sprung from the purest of all sentiments— 
spontaneous love. His words cannot be doubted, as thy 
niece was penniless, which precludes mercenary motive. 
He also acknowledges his own finances as such that will 
secure her a life of indulgence. He promises devotion, 



82 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


fidelity, allegiance to his bride. What, beside these, O 
Dolores, wouldst thou desire for the welfare of thy niece, 
Juana?” 

“Ah,” retorted the woman, bitterly, a tremor, born of 
suppressed tears, in her voice. “I had vouchsafed that^life 
in consecration to the faith. What I had wished was that 
Juana Escalante remain a celibate and enter the church.” 

“But, Dolores,” pursued the sage priest in a tone of gen¬ 
tle remonstrance, “it is not for us to shape the lives of God’s 
subjects. He, in divine wisdom and grace, has endowed 
us all with certain individual impulses, which make the 
best part of our natures. These are not to be crushed out 
against His supreme will. God has marked His predilec¬ 
tion by prompting some of us to shut ourselves utterly 
away from the world; thou art of those elect. He has also 
preordained that others love, marry and populate the 
world. Juana has been chosen for the latter noble cause. 
Grant her thy blessing and leave her in peace.” 

To his words the woman offered no response whatever. 
She crossed herself thrice and began counting her beads. 
When she at length looked up from her devotions Padre 
Baptiste was gone. But she remained sitting in the ve¬ 
randa until twilight, and Felipe, who lay in the obscurity 
of vines at a little distance from his mistress, overheard 
her muttered execration: 

“Now and forever I renounce the child oi my brother. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


33 


Juana Escalante-Vavaseur might starve on the street, but 
never shall I revoke my vow. She has made me defaulter 
from the church. For this transgression may she accord¬ 
ingly suffer!” 

A few days later a telegram reached Casa Escalante. It 
ran briefly: 

“We sail at once for Vera Cruz. From there we go to 
the City of Mexico and Colima. Will you give us wel¬ 
come? JUANA ESCALANTE-VAVASEUR 

To this Dona Dolores made hasty reply, saying: 

“I know not any, nor shall welcome any, by the name 
of Vavaseur. Should you come to Colima, do not seek 
me. It would be useless. 

“DOLORES ESCALANTE ” 

One afternoon, about a month after the reception of the 
telegram, Padre Baptiste was surprised at his church by 
the arrival of a couple who begged of him an interview. 

It was Monsieur Vavaseur and his bride, whom he re¬ 
ceived with much generous welcome. 

Later on the same day he entered the veranda of Casa 
Escalante, where, as usual, sat the dona, alternately pray¬ 
ing and drowsing. 

“How, now, oh, Dolores,” he said, “hast thy heart re¬ 
lented toward Juana and Mario?” 

The woman replied impassively: 

“A month ago I repudiated the child of my deceased 
brother. Henceforth, O Father, I know her not ” 


34 


AFTEI 


“Nay,” the ardu 
so, Dolores, lest tl 
I bring thee tiding 
seur and his bride 
At his words I 
met those of the 
and austere as st 
against reply. 

“They sought n 
ued 'the priest, feel 
pressing it. “The 
with their kinswor 
grace in their beh 
see the pair in th 
reading a sweet st 
Receive them at 
purged of all thim 
only living relativ 
and young Mario 
They have only o 
ere they sail for tl 
for their future hoi 
Still Dona Dolo 
after a considerat 
voice betraying no 
with a mild rebuk< 










AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


35 


“I have been wont to appraise thee, Dolores, as one of 
the church’s most charitable votaries. In contemplating 
thy face I have never thought it bespoke a heart’s contract¬ 
edness, and now thou wouldst have me look upon thee as 
misanthropic. But I shall not believe it—no! Thou wert 
disappointed, offended; I will say thou wert chagrined to 
learn of thy niece’s marriage. Thou didst say such words 
in an irresponsible mood, as thy pride makes thee slow 
to retract. Have done with this obduracy; it is unfitting to 
thy godliness. Think of the future wherein these two 
young lives will be drifting, like foreign sails, apart from 
thee. Reach out thy hand, O daughter, now, whilst they 
are passing, and touch them in blessing. Perfect their 
happiness and insure thine own peace of mind and heart; 
for I do warn thee, s'houldst thou suffer them to depart 
unreconciled, thou wilt know immeasurable pain of re¬ 
morse. Oh, believe me, Dolores!” 

The smile that curved his listener’s lips as he ended gave 
him a little hope of victory. 

“What a pity,” Dona Dolores was thinking, “that such 
eloquence should be so misdirected.” 

Then she shook her head slowly, while her features once 
more became stony. 

“No,” she said, “it can never be. I can not accord what 
you ask, Father Baptiste. She who has caused my defalca¬ 
tion from the church is a thing of contempt in my eyes. 


35 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Juana Vavaseur must not seek me; so bid her, and suffer 
her to go hence with him whom she has chosen. I have 
spoken, Father Baptiste.” 

As she ended thus resolutely the priest’s eyes grew dark 
and dilated with anger. 

“I am amazed at thy cruelty. It is monstrous, Dolores 
Escalante!” he exclaimed. And, rising, he left the veranda 
without a word of adieu to his parishoner. 

Returning to the young couple,Avhom he had left to 
survey the treasures of his church, one of the most ancient 
in Mexico, he said ruefully: 

“My children, peace be with ybu, but I have found your 
kinswoman impervious to all appeal. Dona Dolores Es¬ 
calante remains steadfast in her repudiation of thee, 
Juana, Madame Vavaseur.” 

“Oh, but Father!” cried the young bride, laying a suppli¬ 
ant hand upon the priest’s arm. “If by some possible con¬ 
trivance we could be brought before her—do you not 
think that if her eyes could but dwell for a moment upon 
my husband, Mario-” 

The priest raised his hand in a gentle deprecatory ges¬ 
ture, thus interrupting the speaker. 

“Beloved,” he said, smiling down into her beautiful up¬ 
turned face, “thy great love makest thee—what shall I 
say—a—conceited. Thou dost think that because thou 
art the vanquished of Mario, all the world must become 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


37 


so. However, I would have thee convince thyself. Dona 
Dolores kneels regularly at the shrine of the Blessed Vir¬ 
gin yonder, each morning, first at sunrise. To-morrow 
at that hour be here, thyself and Mario, and as she prays, 
approach and speak to her in the name of her patron saint. 
And now you shalt dine with me. I will have some wine 
from my cellar which came from that sun-land whither 
thou art journeying, and which, I promise you, you wilt 
find equal in flavor to the fabled juice of ‘Monte Beni.’ 
Come, and I will pledge your health, my children, in a cup 
of it.” 


• -v' •■r-r 



38 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS FASSED. 


CHAPTER V. 

After having duly sipped of Padre Baptiste’s wine and 
eaten of his bread, Mario Vavaseur and his bride walked 
forth together in the midsummer night, which was 
swathed in silver moonbeams, and whose tranquillity 
seemed to embrace a miniature sphere from which all 
breathing life was exiled save their own. 

With their thoughts absorbed in one another, and each 
content to meditate in silence, they bent their course 
along foliated paths, where wavering shadows lay upon a 
silver back-ground, making for them a beautiful bridal¬ 
way. 

Across the horizon of the gentle Juana’s life there had 
suddenly dawned a glorious orbit, and her heart was 
filled with grateful adoration of this. She felt an infinite 
gratitude toward the man who ‘had “come from out of the 
silence” to rescue her from a future of threatened bondage. 
But Mario would never brook any words of eulogy from 
her lips. 



AFTEIi THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


39 


He argued that he alone was the gainer. “An altar lily, 
bought with battered coin/’ he would laughingly tell her. 

He loved his beautiful bride with a love surpassing any 
that he had hitherto believed his restless and adventurous 
nature capable of. Though the young scientist had led 
by no means an immoral life, he had a wide conception of 
the lights and shades of the world; he knew them as he 
knew the good and bad specimens of his researches; and 
when he remembered some of the extremely dark laby¬ 
rinths through which he 'had been necessitated to pass, 
to attain scientific truths, he could not but feel himself in 
a manner scathed beside her. 

In the beautiful moon-crowned night the pair walked on 
without converse until the detourous path they were 
following ended abruptly in a fastness of wild vegetation, 
rank and impenetrable. Then it was that, as they turned 
to retrace their steps and their glances wandered simul¬ 
taneously to the northeastern horizon, they both ex¬ 
claimed, as in one voice: 

“Look! the volcano!” 

With its summit towering to an elevation of thirteen 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, the great crater 
of Colima, situated some thirty miles northeast of the city 
of its name, could be seen definitely defined against a 
blood-red sky, while from its riven center a volume of 
smoke, fire and lava issued violently forth. 


40 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


It was an awful, yet a truly magnificent spectacle, and 
after that first astonished cry Monsieur Vavaseur and his 
bride stood gazing toward it, spell-bound. 

Then suddenly Juana felt coming upon her the chill of 
fear, which, when picturing in her mind the “White Priest, 
with Tongue of Flame” she had been wont to feel in 

f 

Merida. 

Involuntarily she pressed closer to her husband’s side, 
and he felt the tremor which shook her frame. 

“What is it, Juana, my love?” he asked, his arm closing 
anxiously about her. 

“Oh, Mario,” she answered him, “I had forgotten that 
the crater was in a present state of action. I would we had 
gone to Acapulco direct from the City of Mexico, and at 
once taken passage at sea, instead of coming here. Pray, 
my dearest, do not think me unconscionable; but of what 
use were it to remain in Colima? Aunt Dolores will not 
be reconciled to us. My heart bespeaks the uselessness of 
further appeal to her. What if Colima should be destroyed 
this very night, and you and I asleep—unknowing? I 
saw by a paper to-day that a steamer would leave Manza- 
nillo to-morrow morning. We could yet reach that port 
in time to set sail. £)h, Mario, my love, the sky is like 
pure blood! I am sore afraid! Let us go!” 

There was a prayerful pleading in her words which, 
though divining their unreason, Mario could not resist. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


41 


“But, my own,” he said, “could we take such unconven¬ 
tional leave of good Padre Baptiste? We have promised 
to remain the priest’s guests for a couple of days.” 

“But he is generous,” replied Juana. “Moreover, he is 
in sympathy with us, and I am sure he would make no 
demur. We will say that we have decided to start for the ^ 
seaport to-night. Come, let us go to him at once.” 

The found the priest in his private study. He heard of 
their changed plans with surprise; but, well-convinced 
in his own heart that their continued sojourn in Colima 
would avail them naught in Dona Dolores’ favor, he 
made no protest against them. 

“But, Mario, my son,” he said, “I had anticipated con¬ 
ducting thee to several points hereabouts that are usually 
of interest to scientific scolars. Especially thou shouldst 
visit the volcano. It being in present activity, I think thou 
wouldst find it well worth thy while. .Since ’69 a new 
crater has been forming, and it is from this that the latest 
eruptions have originated. The journey thither is only 
one of thirty miles, and would compensate thee, I am cer¬ 
tain.” 

“But,” returned monsieur, “I have seen Hecla, Vesuvius, 
Etna—all the greatest volcanoes in the world—and, after 
■ all. Padre Baptiste, they are of nominal interest to a col¬ 
lector; a piece of obsidian, a nugget of melted mineral, or 
a vial of ashes is all that Mount Colima could offer.” 


42 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Aye, for a verity,” acquiesced the priest. “Well, then,” 
he pursued, “if thou art quite determined upon quitting 
Colima at once, there is a treasure which I deem it good 
to bestow upon thy bride, Juana, ere thou goest ” 

He rose, and crossed the room to a massive oaken cabi¬ 
net, elaborately carved. This he unlocked with a key 
suspended to a chain beneath his robe. Removing a 
small article from the topmost shelf, he returned toward 
his guests. 

“This,” he said, holding up as he spoke, so that both 
could see, a beautiful and curiously wrought crucifix, 
“once belonged to Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterey, 
who was viceroy of Mexico late in the fifteenth century. 
It is one of my most highly prized personal relics of rare 
antiquity. But I have chosen to proffer it to thee, beloved 
daughter, as a bridal favor ” 

He laid the crucifix in Juana’s hand, and smiled grave¬ 
ly down into her face, which was eloquent with the grati¬ 
tude her lips would have fain expressed, but for the priest’s 
uplifted finger. 

“Nay, beloved,” he said, “I want no words of thanks. 
What I have bestowed is a symbol of holiness and affec¬ 
tion. The crucifix of De Zuniga is an amulet of grace; 
with it in thy possession thou, Juana, mayest know mis¬ 
fortune, but it cannot fail to bring at some time a blessing 
to thee or thine. Part with thy right hand rather than 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


43 


this ornament; and when thou comest to die, bequeathe 
it to the nearest to thee in bond of blood.” 

“Oh, holy father, I revere your admonition! I shall 
keep your gift sacredly, and with lasting fidelity!” mur¬ 
mured Madame Vavaseur, with tearfiil fervency. Then 
she raised the crucifix to her lips, to kiss its graven image 
of the Savior. 

Soon afterward the couple knelt to receive the priest’s 
benediction, the candle-light throwing a pale halo on the 
floor about them. 

When they rose Juana’s tears were flowing thickly, 
while the countenance of her husband also betrayed in¬ 
tense feeling. 

Grasping the hand of the priest, he thanked him in 
earnest words for his generously vouchsafed friendship, 
a friendship which, they both promised him, should always 
lie warm in their memory. 

After Mario had finished speaking the priest retained 
his hand, while he fixed a solicitous regard upon the young 
man’s face. 

“There is undue heat in thy palm, my son, and thy 
pulse is fast,” he said. “Also, while at dinner thou merely 
tasted of wine, thy cheek is flushed as though thou hadst 
quaffed too freely. I fear thou didst tarry over-long in 
that pestilential climate of Vera Cruz, and, by so doing, 
contracted a taint of the fever. At this time of the year 




44 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

a stay in the tierra caliente, if limited to a few hours, is 
quite sufficient for one to be inoculated with the fatal 
germ.” 

At his words Juana started and brushed away her 
tears. Her eyes, with a look in them of deep solicitude, 
sought the face of her husband. 

But when Mario laughingly deprecated the priest’s ap¬ 
prehensions she, too, smiled and joined with him in say¬ 
ing that the vivid color on his cheek was merely due to the 
sun’s heat, in which he had been much exposed during 
his travels. 

So, the subject was summarily abandoned. It was after 
midnight when farewells were finally said. 

“Adios! adios!” Padre Baptiste’s last words sounded, as 
he stood, a blinding tear-mist before his eyes, waving his 
hand at the retreating pair. “Some day I may seek thee 
in the sun-land whither thou art journeying. Adios! Re¬ 
member, Juana, the sacred amulet! Keep it by thee al¬ 
ways !” 

And she turned her beautiful face backward in the 
white moonlight, to smile upon and answer him: 

“Yes, O Father! Always will I keep thy gracious gift— 
always, until death. Adios!” 


BOOK II. 


Miriam's Crime. 













AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


47 


BOOK II. 

f - 


Miriam’s Crime. 


CHAPTER VI. 

It was not yet sun-down, as was evinced by a narrow 
gilt line along the western horizon. 

The December sky hovered with ponderous melancholy 
midway to earth, producing a dull-gray monotone of color, 
through which the street lights glimmered palely forth. 
There was an occasional impetuous swirl of wind from 
the south, whose dampness presaged the near approach 
of rain, and which made pedestrians hurry along the 
thoroughfares, eager to reach cheery fire-sides at home, 
while vagabonds crept close up to the walls, to keep 
warm. 

“Father, trade has been slow to-day?” observed Esther 
Cohen to the antiquarian book-dealer, as that personage 
laid aside the Hebrew paper he had been reading, and, 
with a prolonged yawn, rose from the table. 




48 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Old Sol,” as he was familiarly dubbed by his patrons, 
grunted a surly response to his daughter’s query. 

“Who wants second-hand books at Christmas time? 
People need all their money for jimcracks, eh, Esther?” he 
said. 

The girl smilingly lifted her dark eye-brows, and, tak¬ 
ing a tray of dishes, repaired with it to the kitchen, while 
her father returned to the front room, which boasted 
the honored appellation of “store.” 

Here he proceeded to stir a feeble coal-fire in the stove, 
added a little more fuel, then comfortably ensconced 
himself in an arm-chair near the hearth, to doze, accord¬ 
ing to his regular after-dinner habit. 

Scarcely had his eyes closed, however, when the shop- 
door opened, letting in a gentleman customer and a sharp 
gust of wind. 

The person who had entered was of unusual physical 
attraction, and about twenty-five years of age. From be¬ 
neath the rim of his soft black felt hat there appeared a 
strikingly handsome and distinguished-looking face, to 
which a plentiful dark mustache gave manliness, and a 
pair of large, lustrous, deep-blue eyes, expression. 

Old Sol rose and went toward him quickly and with 
a patronizing bow. His small black eyes sparkled eagerly 
as he asked the gentleman how he would be served- 

“Have you a book by the English historian, Sir Arthur 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


49 


Helps, entitled ‘Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd?’ ” 
said the stranger. 

The Jew, although well aware that the volume specified 
was not of its contents, handed him a catalogue. 

But, in default of the coveted volume, there was one 
mentioned by a popular English moralist, which the cus¬ 
tomer expressed a desire to examine. 

The antiquarian dealer was not very prompt in granting 
his request. He occupied nearly fifteen minutes searching 
among dusty volumes on a top shelf ere he at last reward¬ 
ed the gentleman’s patience by a triumphant reiteration 
of the title: 

“ ‘Essays by John Foster’!” 

Then, dusting the acquired volume with nice precision, 
he passed it to the stranger, and brought a lamp, which 
he placed convenient to him, after which office of polite¬ 
ness he diplomatically returned to his arm-chair, by the 
stove, where he remained, noiselessly chafing his fat hands 
together, as he contemplated the possible triumph of real¬ 
izing a ten-dollar gold piece from the precious relic of 
Foster. 

On the keen alert, he heard the turning of every leaf, 
and once, as his daughter Esther looked in between the 
print-curtains, which separated their living apartments 
from the store, she was motioned back by a series of wild 
gesticulations. 


50 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Has father gone daft?” she silently wondered. But 
when she saw the gentleman bent so intensely over the 
open book she immediately divined the meaning of her 
father’s actions and discreetly withdrew. 

So profoundly engrossed had Homer Davanant be¬ 
come in the historian’s terse and elegant language that 
he forgot the flight of* time, and did not glance from the 
pages of the book, until at length he was interrupted by 
a sound from behind and a sharp gust of wind blowing 
in upon him from the street. Then he turned slightly, to 
regard, with a sort of abstracted stare, the almost shabily 
clad person who had entered the shop, and whom the He¬ 
brew dealer approached with a visible air of impatience. 

“Vel, vat can I do for you, mees?” he brusquely ques¬ 
tioned. 

All at once Homer Davanant found himself listening 
to the answer, which came faint, half-tremulously, yet 
with an intonation of eagerness, from behind the young 
girl’s closely drawn vail. 

“Do you buy works of ancient French literature?” 

The eyes of the on-looker wandered swiftly from the 
veiled speaker to the antiquarian’s face, then to the small 
parcel held shrinkingly toward the latter by an ungloved 
hand, which his all-comprehensive glance noted was 
small, white and delicately shaped, and now an expres¬ 
sion of eager interest quickened in those splendid orbs. 























































































AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


53 


He watched as the Jew took the parcel, slowly removed 
the paper wrapper therefrom, and glanced, with seeming 
indifference, at the richly bound volume now presented 
to view. 

I “‘The Tragedy of Zaire,’” he spoke presently, with 
a calm inflection of voice which a certain omnivorous 
twinkle of his eyes belied. “Untranslated!” 

The antiquarian set his frowsy head into a rocking mo¬ 
tion, then, after slowly turning a few pages of the volume, 
he further remarked: 

“You see, young mees, such works as this are a drug 
on the market. Yes, it is so!” 

The girl, vouchsafing no reply to his words, he spoke 
against almost gruffly: 

“How much do you want for your book?” 

“Cunning old fox!” scoffed Davanant, mentally, as 
he watched the hungry twinkle of the Jew’s eyes. 

“It should bring at least ten dollars, I think, sir,” she 
answered. “The book originally belonged to my great¬ 
grandfather, who was a personal friend of the author. My 
mother has always treasured it as an heir-loom, and it 
is only from the direst necessity that I am brought to part 
with it.” 

“A wonderfully sweet voice; slightly foreign accent,” 
thought Mr. Davanant, piercing his scrutiny through the 
speaker’s veil, sufficiently to note that her lip quivered 


54 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

• 

and that a small spot of the fabric was suddenly darkened 
by a fallen tear-drop. At her words the Jew gave vent 
to a low whistle and shrugged his ponderous shoulders. 

“Ten dollars!” he repeated derisively. “Vy, my dear 
young mees, I give you my word, I could not get that sum 
for my whole stock of goods. Prodigious! ha, ha! Ex¬ 
orbitant! Listen; for this I will pay you free dollars; 
more, I give you my vord, than' any other dealer in San 
Francisco would offer for an untranslated book. I try 
always to be accommodating. See?” with another violent 
paroxysm of his shoulders. 

“Accursed old hypocrite!” inaudibly hissed the man 
in the background. 

With a quick, impetuous movement of her hand, a ges¬ 
ture that bespoke imperiousness, contempt and disap¬ 
pointment, the young girl took back her volume. Hastily 
rewrapping it before the antiquarian’s surprised, half- 
angry gaze, she was about to quit the store, when Mr. 
Davanant, by her quite unobserved before, approached 
and respectfully asked to be allowed to examine the book 
she wished to dispose of. 

Without looking up, lest the tears now flowing thick 
and fast beneath her veil, should be discerned, she handed 
him the parcel. 

Now, Homer Davanant, a man of exceptionally fine 
literary taste, had always regarded Voltaire, that high 


65 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

priest of infidels, with a disfavor so pronounced that he 
had never tolerated in his library a single work by this 
author. Yet he repeated the title of the book now before 
him as if he found therein a peculiar fascination: 

“The Tragedy of Zaire” 

Then it was with a heart beating with new hope that 
the veiled stranger heard him exclaim: 

“Issued in seventeen hundred and thirty, nearly a cen¬ 
tury and a half ago! Surely, this volume, with the author’s 
original signature inscribed, is worth twenty dollars, if a 
cent. Mademoiselle, I will buy it of you, and gladly.” 

The words dazzled her, and ere she could recover her¬ 
self the young girl felt the pressure of gold coins in her 
palm. 

“Oh, sir!” she cried, lifting her eyes toward the noble 
countenance of her patron, you will never know how 
great a service you have rendered me. How can I show 
my gratitude to you?” 

His only reply was: 

“I will accompany you to the door, Mademoiselle.” 

“Stay!” cried out a lusty voice, as they were moving 
away. “Does not the gentleman require the essays by 
Foster?” 

Davanant turned slightly around at the Jew’s query. 

“How much do you want for your book?” he asked, 
an ironical smile just vissibly curving his upper lip. 


56 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Old Sol pretended to calculate briefly. 

“Oh!” he exclaimed, with an upward fluttering of his 
palms, indicative of his resignation to a great sacrifice, 
“take it along for ten dollars. Dirt cheap, I give you my 
word. But 'I always try to be accommodating. See?” 

And with this the dealer proceeded hastily to adjust 
a paper over the essays. But he dropped the parcel sud¬ 
denly, and with an air of wretched defeat, as the retiring 
gentleman exclaimed: 

“Ten dollars, eh? Why, a moment ago I thought I 
heard you appraise your whole stock of books at that 
sum. Ha, ha, ha! Prodigious! I will give you three 
dollars for Foster. No? Very well, then. Ta-ta.” 

And, still laughing, Davanant vanished without, fol¬ 
lowed by the Heberw’s execrations. 

“Curse him, and that imp of a beggar as well! But 
for her the man would have bought the essays, and at 
my price. Esther, Esther!” he called fiercely; whereupon 
the print curtains parted and his daughter entered the 
store. 

“What is it, father?” 

“Pile all those books back on the top shelf.” 

“Yes, sir. Did you make a sale, father?” 

“Do as I bid you, shrew. Put the books back,” de¬ 
manded the antiquarian. And Esther silently obeyed, 
inwardly marveling at his rage. 


AFTEK THE MIGHT HAS PASSED. 


57 


CHAPTER VII. 

Some able writer has called heroism “a brilliant tri¬ 
umph of the soul over the flesh,” and the term found apt 
exemplification in Homer Davanant. 

His was a superior charm of manner, which made him 
at all times a distinct favorite with his own sex, and the 
adored of women. 

Possessing vast profitable estates and many secure 
stock investments, he was recognized as one of the richest 
men of the West. Those familiar with his “private char¬ 
acter” dubbed him the “young philanthropist,” inasmuch 
as he was usually to be found at the head of those proceed¬ 
ings tending toward the benefit of worthy poor, and spent, 
without ostentation, thousands of dollars a year for char¬ 
ity’s sake. His handsome, high-bred face was familiar to 
the officials of church, convent, hospital and all public 
institutions alike, while in many an obscure home, where 
he had rendered some secret noble service, his name was 
held devoutly as an adjunct of religious truth. 


58 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


His impulse in buying the volume of Voltaire from an 
unknown maiden, whose dress had hinted of urgent pov¬ 
erty, but whose voice and manner had bespoken refine¬ 
ment, pride and culture, cannot be identified with any 
other incentive than that originating from the grand 
central soul of philanthropy. 

As he walked toward his hotel, after bidding good-night 
to the young girl outside the antiquarian’s, he slipped 
the “Tragedy of Zaire” in the inside pocket of his over¬ 
coat. Probably he had already forgotten the liberal price 
at which it had been purchased, as twenty dollars out 
of his vast revenues was but as a drop of water from the 
bucket. But as he walked on, his face now and then up¬ 
turned to the starless, storm-predicting sky, involuntarily 
his thoughts reverted to the veiled maiden. 

“Who is she? Where is her abode? What are her 
habits and conditions of life? Her voice sounded with 
such strange sweetness. But its tremor and her tears! 
What had engendered these? 

Upon entering his hotel Davanant was surprised to find 
the dinner hour almost over. That he pushed his soup 
and terrapin aside scarcely tasted was also a fact which 
caused him some wonder. 

“Bring me a cup of coffee, strong and hot,” he said 
briefly to the man-in-waiting. And with that beverage 
thirstily dispatched, he repaired to the office, where he 


59 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

was handed some letters that had arrived for him that aft¬ 
ernoon. 

These he opened leisurely, glancing over their contents 
with calm indifference, until at length he came to one 
addressed in a familiar hand, and at sight of which he 
manifested a slight interest. 

“From Miriam!” he exclaimed, half aloud. Tearing off 
the envelope, he took in at a glance the lines, which ran 
briefly: 

“Homer—Bring me a bunch of niphetos roses when 
you come to-night—a hand bouquet. Yours, 

“MIRIAM” 

With a look of sudden consternation on his face Dava- 
naut crushed the note in his hand as though it had stung 
him, the dainty, perfumed little thing, and, tossing it in 
the glowing grate, he sprang to his feet, his eyes fixed 
toward the dial of the office clock, whose long finger 
would in just one minute point to nine. And now an 
ejaculation flavoring of acute self-disgust broke from him. 

“Mrs. Mayo Templeton’s! By Jove! I had forgotten 
the party!” 

With these words Davanant left the foyer with such 
precipitance that its few loiterers gazed after him, mutely 
wondering at the violent behavior of one who was usually 
so calm and dignified. Three-quarters of an hour later 
he left his apartments attired in full dress, and, looking 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


a modern Lord Chesterfield. Fortunate that a florist was 
within a moment’s ride, else the lateness of the hour would 
have precluded the possibility of roses. As it was, he 
was compelled to take some Marshal Niels, instead of 
the creation specified by Miriam in her note. 

Miss Vernoys, moving restlessly up and down the 
length of a richly appointed drawing-room on Pacific 
Heights, drawing over her finely molded arms a pair of 
long white kid gloves, abruptly paused in her promenade 
as the clock on the mantle chimed ten. 

“Impossible! It can’t be so late!” she cried incred¬ 
ulously. 

Crossing the room, she pushed an electric button. 

“Martin,” she said to tjie butler who came, “what is the 
correct time?” 

The man made careful reference to his watch. 

“One minute past ten, mum,” he said. 

“Are you quite sure your watch is correct?” Miss Ver¬ 
noys questioned, still incredulous. 

“Yes, mum; I carry Observatory time, mum.” 

Miriam dismissed him, and again pressed the electric 
button. 

This time her maid appeared. 

“Jael, I have broken a button of my glove,” she said 
impatiently. “Bring needle and thread; quick!” 

While awaiting the girl’s return Miriam walked to the 


AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 61 

bay-window, parted the draperies thereat and looked down 
on the sombre street. 

How late he is,” she said, with a suppressed sigh. 

Miss Miriam, have you removed your glove? Where 
are you, Miss Miriam?” 

At the sound of her maid’s voice she came f^om be¬ 
hind the silken hangings. 

It is not necessary to remove it,” she said, holding out 
her hand. “Sew it on strongly.” 

“But, Miss Miriam,” cried Jael in dismay, “it is a bad 
omen to sew anything while on the person.” 

“Bah, I have no faith in omens,” disdainfully replied 
her mistress. “Sew the button and do not prod me with 
the needle.” 

At that moment a shadow darkened the threshold/and 
Miriam glanced up quickly. 

“Ah! You have come at last?” she exclaimed, at the 
same instant rebuking herself for having betrayed her im¬ 
patience. 

Davanant crossed the room to where she stood, under 
the brilliant chandelier, her young beauty enhanced by 
a toilette of rich lavender mousseline de soie, her faultless 
bosom resplendent in a diamond necklace, the especial 
envy of half the women of her set, and a star of the same 
jewels flashing from her coronet of dead-gold hair. 

“I regret to have kept you waiting, Miriam,” he said, 


62 AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

with low-toned fervor; “but your note—a—I did not get 
it until after dinner, and the roses—had to be got.” 

At his words, a trifle incoherently spoken, she looked up 
and met his eyes, a smile irradiating her face. 

But her long lashes drooped again almost instantly, 
while a wave of scarlet passed swiftly over the bare white¬ 
ness of her throat, deepening as it reached her cheek. 

“It does not matter. I like to be a trifle late,” she said. 
Then, conscious that he was regarding her dress critic¬ 
ally, she asked, her voice slightly unsteady P 

“How do you like me, Homer?” 

“You are superb. You realize something of Rem¬ 
brandt that I have seen; I have forgotten where,” he told 
her. 

A few minutes later he drew on her wraps and they 
left the drawing-room, Miriam making some faint demur 
about the roses as the silken portieres fell behind them, 
despite which, however, her joyous laugh was wafted 
back to Jael, who had watched them depart. 

Mrs. Mayo Templeton’s parties were always splendid 
affairs, and her drawing-rooms, with their elaborate fur¬ 
nishings and costly floral decorations, made a fitting en¬ 
vironment for the elect of San Francisco’s fashionable 
world. 

To-night the rooms were not so crowded but what 
almost everyone knew the instant that Homer Davanant 
entered, with the beautiful Miss Vernoys on his arm. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


63 


“The lion of society! The handsomest and richest man 
in San Francisco!” “I wonder if he is really going to marry 
Miss Vernoys? He has been paying her attention since 
before she left off short frocks” “But you know they are 
related by marriage. I don’t believe he has any serious 
intentions in that direction,” were the whispered phrases 
that fluttered from the lips of mammas and chaperons, 
while this year’s “buds” and last year’s “belles” unani¬ 
mously fell to scanning their programs, fervently hoping 
to find one available waltz. 

“Your card, Miss Vernoys?” some one said, and Dava- 
nant gave way respectfully to the score of admirers al¬ 
ready surrounding Miriam. 

No sooner had he left her side than Mrs. Templeton 
gently tapped him upon the arm with her fan. 

“Mr. Davanant, I want to introduce you to my nieces, 
from Milwaukee. Will you come?” 

Accordingly, he suffered himself to be led toward the 
pair of Wisconsin beauties, who stood near a jungle of 
palms, each striving to appear supremely unconscious 
of the lion’s approach, each secretly wondering in her 
own bosom if she was the one preordained to vanquish 
him. Mrs. Templeton had vouchsafed to her nieces the 
sanguine opinion that one of them would vanquish the 
heart of the young capitalist beyond a doubt. 

Davanant, introduced, bowed punctiliously before the 


64 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


statue in pearl-pink, and before the statue in sky-blue. 
He then proceeded to write his name opposite a lancers 
on Miss Arnold’s card, and opposite a waltz on Miss Lyl- 
lian Arnold’s card, after which he coined a graceful con¬ 
ventionality for each statue, bowed again profoundly, 
and retired, followed by two pairs of adoring gray eyes. 

“Oh, he’s awfully handsome,” mildly enthused Miss 
Arnold, behind her tissue fan. 

“He looks for all the world, I imagine, like a Greek 
gladiator. I do admire strength in a man! He has en¬ 
gaged me for a waltz, aunty,” a little more elaborately 
enthused Miss Lyllian Arnold, behind her ivory fan. 

Mrs. Templeton smiled with infinite satisfaction, and 
went to find other partners for her nieces. 

Miriam’s eyes restlessly followed Dayanant’s move¬ 
ments in the crowd, as he paused to chat briefly or to take 
a dance from this and that one. 

He returned to her side just as the Hungarian orchestra 
struck up the first ravishing strains of a waltz. 

She flashed him a smile of welcome. 

“Ours?” he said. 

“And I have saved you two others,” she said, as they 
glided out upon the canvased floor. 

Did Miriam love him? 

That question had never, as yet, taken place in her 
mind. But it was true that Homer Davanant fitted all 
the requirements of her ideal man. 


65 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

To have him always near her seemed but natural to 
Miriam, as he was the brother of her sister’s deceased hus¬ 
band. He attended her everywhere; he sent her all the 
latest novels; he drove her in the park, and along the ocean 
boulevard, behind his fine span of blacks. What more 
allegiance could she have possibly claimed of Davanant? 

Love was a problem which Miriam had never thought 
to analyze, and if you had asked her the meaning of the 
word she, doubtless, would have said: “Love is a passion 
that is governed by confidence and jealousy.” To the lat¬ 
ter emotion she would have confessed herself a stranger, 
remote and entire; for she had forgotten the inward “creep¬ 
ing” sensation which she had once experienced when 
Davanant had incidentally expressed his penchant for 
women of the brunettetype. That was long ago. But 
sometime the little asp, sleeping beneath her bosom’s 
whiteness, would stir again—would stir, and waken, and 
strike, with its virulent fang—some one! 

The party over, Miriam carried home the Marshal Niel 
roses Davanant had brought her, and placed them tenderly 
away in a scented mosaic box. She could not have said 
why she placed them there. Davanant had given her 
hundreds of roses before, and the thought had never 
occurred to her to preserve one of them. Nor coufd she 
have explained why she thought of him to the exclusion 
of all others—long, long after she had sought het 


66 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


pillow, and why he came so distinctly to her dreams that 
morning. 

And it seemed that she was always waiting for him 
to come—that he was late. 


« 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


67 


4 

CHAPTER VIII. 

It had rained heavily during the hours preceding dawn, 
and the atmosphere still hung dark and damp over the 
city. Davanant stared from the window of 'his hotel apart¬ 
ments down into the sodden street, with thoughts that 
were fragmentary and disconnected. 

A young girl, meanly clad, with a veiled face and a 
suggestion of soft, black curls showing beneath a close- 
fitling turban; a voice full of appealing pathos; a vague 
conception of large k dark, tear-charged eyes. 

A woman, splendidly dressed, whose beauty had re¬ 
minded him of one of Rembrandt’s paintings. 

A suite of splendid, flower-decked, brilliant rooms, 
crowded with richly dressed men and women, and perme¬ 
ated by sweet strains of music, above which seemed to 
float from some remote and mysterious quarter the per¬ 
petual rebuking cry: “What pleasure can you find there, 
knowing of the wretchedness in the world? While you 
dance, and feast, and are warm, and well, and gay, the 


68 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

wolf is gnawing at our door! While yours is abundance 
and peace, ours is hunger, and cold, and wretchedness.” 

A scene from the “Tragedy of Zaire”—a scene replete 
with the sublime mystery and genius of its infidel author, 
which he had read sometime during the small hours of 
morning, as he had lain with sleepless eyes, and heart 
restive under some indefinite weight 

All these passed in the mind of Homer Davanant as he 
stood at the window, and it was not until a servant entered 
his rooms, bearing a light breakfast and the morning pa¬ 
pers, that he was roused from his confused reverie. He 
drank thirstily of his coffee, and nibbled at some buttered 
toast, while he glanced at the Chronicle. But the paper 
possessing superior charm, he soon pushed back the tray 
and gave himself up exclusively to the gossip and prob¬ 
lems of the day. 

The column devoted to “Society Notes” engaged his 
brief attention. He glanced along this, dwelling with an 
amused smile upon that paragraph which attempted a 
description of the toilet Miss Vernoys had worn at Mrs. 
Templeton’s, and utterly failed, calling her dress “maize 
silk,” her jewels “sapphires,” and her roses “La Bride.” 

“Ridiculous!” laughed the reader as he turned to a pop¬ 
ular charitable topic. This duly reviewed, his glance 
strayed to the death column, which was never disregarded 
by Davanant at that time, as a contagion prevailed in cer- 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


tain obscure portions of the city, and he was acquainted 
with a few serious cases. He was glad to note that the list 
was not of great length this morning, and that it contained 
no familiar name. 

Stay! There was one, at the end of the column, that held 
his eye suddenly. 

“Vavaseur,” read the announcement. “In this city, 
Dec. —, 189—, Juana Escalante-Vavaseur, beloved mother 
of Violet Vavaseur, a native of Merida, Yucatan, aged 
thirty-eight years. Funeral this day, at 2:30 p. m., from 
14 Blank place. Interment, Mount Calvary cemetery.” 

“Vavaseur,” Davanant repeated the name aloud. 

“Of French origin,” he remarked. “And I have cer¬ 
tainly heard of some one by that name. Who?” 

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and crossed the room to 
a small Indian stand, ujDon which lay his recently acquired 
volume of Voltaire. 

With a kind of nervous agitation he snatched up the 
copy, opened it at the fly-leaf, and gazed at the inscription 
thereon. It read : 

“M. Auguste Vavaseur, Paris, 1731.” 

Immediately beneath this signature, on the same page, 
appeared an original autograph of the author, and on the 
page opposite, the name as given in the death notice— 
“Juana Escalante-Vavaseur. San Francisco, California, 
1886.” 


70 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


With a low exclamation Davanant replaced the book 
on the stand, then hastily proceeded to dress. 

A few moments later he left his apartment, and by 
the violent manner in which he sprang down the stairs, 
three steps at a time, instead of waiting for the elevator, 
one would have judged him to be bent upon an errand 
that involved either life or death. 

As he gained the door of the hotel he came face to 
face with Miriam. 

“Ah, Homer,” she exclaimed, radiant with smiles and 
fresh violets. “I am a trifle late. The coaches are all ready 
to start, I see. Where are we to ride?” 

He gazed at her blankly. 

“Ride?” he repeated. 

“The charity game!” cried Miriam. “Is it possible you 
had forgotten that?” and a slight frpwn knit itself between 
her arched brows as she spoke. 

Davanant flushed and nervously pulled his mustache. 

“Zounds!” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten.” Pause; 
very awkward. Then he spoke again: “I have a little 
business—urgent—Miriam. You won’t mind riding to 
the grounds without me, will you? I’ll join you before 
the game is finished. Come, I’ll put you on the coach.” 

The furrow on her brow deepened. She turned silently, 
and they went out toward the array of purple and crimson 
coaches, and she was handed to a place on top of one of 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


71 


the latter, where, among other leading society stars, she 
sat, trying to appear complacent, as Davanant courteously 
lifted his hat and hurried away. 

Miriam pretended not to watch his retreating form; 
but when the line of coaches began to move, she knew that 
he had entered a cab, and was being driven, at the utmost 
speed of the horses, toward the southern part of the city. 

“Where can he possibly be going?” she thought to her¬ 
self, striving to crush down the indignation caused by 
his summary abandonment of her. 


72 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 




CHAPTER IX. 

The bells of the city were just striking one when Dava- 
nant alighted from the cab, in a narrow, obscure street, 
before a squalid tenement, only distinguishable from a 
dozen others in the row by a. knot of crape on the door. 

The cotton blinds of this house were closely drawn, but 
through them he could discern a faint light, as of burning 
candles. 

Mounting the low flight of steps, the young capitalist 
entered without knocking, and, there being no hall nor 
ante-chamber, found himself at once in a poorly furnished 
room, where was depicted one of the most pathetic scenes 
of death conceivable. Near the center of the apartment 
there stood a bier, draped with a cotton sheet, and upon 
which reclined a coffin of the cheapest imaginable con¬ 
struction. No flowers were there to relieve the somber¬ 
ness of that funeral-bed; but candles—waxen tapers, burn¬ 
ing with a pallid, fitful light—stood at the head and feet of 
her who slept so peacefully, and the image of the Virgin 
watched there, the infant Jesus in her arms. 





AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


78 


At a short distance apart, upon a rude couch, was the 
prostrate form of a beautiful young girl, over whom two 
sable-vestured nuns bent anxiously. 

“Sister Agnes, can I assist you in any possible way?” 

At the sound of a strange voice, falling abruptly on the 
intense silence which pervaded the room, both women 
looked up quickly. 

“Oh, it is you, Mr. Davanant?” said Sister Agnes, in a 
tone of recognition. “But how charitable of you, sir, to 
come here. No,” she answered in reply to his question; 
“nothing more than we are doing can be done at present. 
The child has fainted from sheer revolt at the rude man¬ 
ner in which the undertakers placed her mother in the 
coffin there. But she was already worn out with long 
vigil and probable fasting.” 

“They were very poor?” questioned Davanant, in an 
undertone, his gaze fast riveted upon the face of the inani¬ 
mate girl, enwreathed in its mass of clinging, jetty curls. 

“Aye, poor, indeed, sir,” responded the nun, in a voice 
full of sympathy. “So poor that Violet, here, was forced 
last night to sell some treasured family heirlooms in order 
that a shroud and casket might be procured for her dead. 
It seems they suffered immeasurably from poverty ere 
the fever came. But none knew of their deprivations, 
as Madame Vavaseur was inordinately proud, and the 
daughter brave and enduring beyond her years. Poor 
stricken one!” 


74 


■ ; " v ■?. f \ ■ ■■■ . ••; - 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

“Is the young lady alone in her affliction?” asked Dava- 
nant, still in that eager, constrained whisper. 

“Yes, alone, utterly alone,” Sister Agnes responded. 
“Her father, Monsieur Vavaseur,” she went on to explain, 
“died ere Violet saw the light of life, shortly after his ar¬ 
rival with his bride in San Francisco from Mexico, during 
the early days of their marriage. It seemed that he con¬ 
tracted the fatal fever in the forests of Vera Cruz, while 
making scientific researches there. 

“Madame Vavaseur’s only relative, a maiden aunt living 
in Mexico, repudiated her upon the occasion of her mar¬ 
riage, and so it happened that in the days of her widow¬ 
hood and adversity she was forced to dwell among stran¬ 
gers. She educated her daughter at a convent, giving her 
every advantage her limited means could afford. Then, 
shortly after Violet had left the convent-school, she and 
her mother disappeared; they came here, it seems, to this 
little tenement, where for two years they have eked out a 
mpiserable existence, and in whidi obscurity a priest from 
our parish came upon them incidentally two weeks ago, and 
found the mother just stricken down with the fever from 
which she died. We, Sister Celia and myself, were with 
her almost constantly throughout her illness; but, though 
fully conscious,, much of the time, Madame Vavaseur’s lips 
were sealed against complaint up to the last. It was only 
after she was dead that we knew of her long and bitter 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


75 


struggle with life, and then Violet told us. Oh, Mr. Dava- 
nant!” (here the eyes of the speaker filled with tears) “she 
was one of the very noblest of women. Madame Vavaseur 
was a beautiful martyr—a living saint!” 

Davanant bowed at the eulogy pronounced thus, in 
behalf of the dead. 

“And the daughter?” he asked. “Are there any plans 
concerning her future?” 

“We have taken little thought as yet regarding the fu¬ 
ture of the orphan,” answered the nun. “But it is likely 
we will find her a home with some well-to-do lady of our 
parish—or, perhaps, Mr. Davanant, you might suggest 
some one you think would be interested in her. You 
are-” 

“S—h!” interrupted Sister Agnes, suddenly. “She is 
reviving.” And noting signs of this in the tremor of the 
girl’s long lashes and curved lips, Davanant deferentially 
withdrew, and left the house as noiselessly as he had en¬ 
tered. 

“To Pacific Heights,” he said to the cabman, adding 
a number, and in a very short space of time he was closeted 
with his sister-in-law at her residence. 

“Gladys,” he said, as he rose to go, after a brief inter¬ 
view with that most adorable lady, “I am sure you will 
have no cause to regret your decision. I will tell the cab¬ 
man to wait, and you will have time to reach there before 


76 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


half-past two, the time set for the funeral. Good-by, dear, 
and a thousand thanks!” and with a fervent pressure of 
the hand he was off to join Miriam at the recreation 
grounds, according to his promise. 

That afternoon all that remained of the gentle Juana was 
laid to rest at Mount Calvary, beside Mario. 

They left the fresh-turned grave, and as their carriage 
rolled back toward the city Violet stifled her bitter sobs 
in order to hear what the lady beside her was saying—the 
lady who had brought the beautiful pillow of white violets, 
as a tribute to her beloved dead, and whom the nuns had 
called her “kind benefactress.” 

She heard Mrs. Davanant’s words with incredulity. 

“Home, friends, and, eventually, new happiness?” 

“Oh!” she cried, “how could these possibly exist for me 
ever again, with mamma gone so irretrievably?” 

But, in the room prepared for her, immediately above 
Mrs. Davanant’s own, sleep came to the orphaned girl that 
night, bringing temporary peace of mind and heart. She 
was unconscious of that entrance and soft approach at 
midnight of one whose face was darkened as by malevolent 
thought. 

Closer, closer over the slumberer bent Miriam Vernoys. 
Her hand touched lightly, ever so lightly—a stray curl, 
lying like jetty floss upon the pillow’s whiteness. 

“Ah! how soft, how black!” the still intruder whispered, 
bending there. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


77 


Then, even as Miriam’s touch still lingered on the beauti¬ 
ful silken tress, Violet made a restive movement, and 
one of her hands strayed to the crucifix suspended about 
her neck by a slender chain of gold. Around the cross 
her fingers clung tenaciously for a moment, while her 
lips opened, framing the words, audibly: 

“My amulet! Mamma!” 

This was all. Her hand fell limply back upon the cover¬ 
lid; her features resumed their peaceful repose, and Mir¬ 
iam quitted the room quite as stealthily as she had en¬ 
tered. 

“I find your protege a most interesting and agreeable 
person, Homer,” said Mrs. Davanant to her brother-in- 
law, who dined with her on Christmas eve. “She is edu¬ 
cated, beautiful, refined, proud, ah! very proud. She has 
asked in what capacity she is to serve me. She eschews 
the idea of accepting a home with me without being as¬ 
signed some special duty. I am sure Natalie would read¬ 
ily acquire French under her gentle jurisdiction, and the 
child has taken a surprising fancy to mademoiselle.” 

Davanant smiled. 

“Did some packages come to-day?” he asked, evasively. 

“Yes, two. Did you send them? I have been rather 
curious about them,” said Gladys. 

“I forgot to instruct the messenger to say that they 
were for Mademoiselle Vavaseur.” 


78 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 




At Davanant’s words Miriam slightly turned from the 
piano, where she was arranging some music. 

“The sale took place to-day,” he went on, “and there 
was a portrait of her mother and some old volumes which 
I thought Madamoiselle Vavaseur would like to have re¬ 
served.” 

Miriam resumed her former attitude at the piano, a sigh 
of relief, half audible, escaping her; for the thought had 
occurred to her that the packages alluded to might possibly 
contain something more important, Christmas presents 
for mademoiselle, for instance. 

“How did the sale come out?” questioned Gladys. 

“Fairly well,” her brother-in-law replied, half fearful 
lest the lie should choke him. “The furniture, curios and 
traps brought more than I had anticipated—three hun¬ 
dred dollars. But it made my blood boil to watch those 
gluttonous Hebrew dealers drag away their spoils, like 
dogs eating offal-meat, afraid that a shred of it might pos¬ 
sibly escape them. Can the things be sent up to made¬ 
moiselle?” he asked. 

“Of course, at once,” and Gladys rose to give the order. 

“Stay!” Davanant said. “I had better send a note with 
them, explaining what the things brought, and that the 
money is at the bank, subject to her order, through you, 
at any time. I will say, also, that she need not distress 
herself about dependence and that sort o’ thing, as the 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


79 


money is quite sufficient to meet her requirements for a 
few months. As to Natalie’s French, why, she is young 
for that, as yet; but she will naturally be thrown with 
mademoiselle more or less, and such association will be 
of advantage to the child. May I have writing materials?” 

Gladys went to the escritoire and opened it hesitatingly. 

“But why not see mademoiselle personally, Homer?” 
she asked. 

Davanant flushed up; "but she did not ©bserve his per¬ 
turbation. ^ 

“That is unnecessary,” he said, seating himself prepar¬ 
atory to writing. “It would be awkward for both of us. 
One can express oneself upon subjects of this nature 
much better in writing than orally.” 

“But you intend seeing her before starting for the East, 
do you not?” 

“No; I shall make no attempt to do so.” 

Mrs. Davanant turned away, an odd smile on her face, 
and he commenced to write, with strains of soft music 
filling the room. Miriam had sunk upon the piano-stool 
and was playing one of Chopin’s dreamy nocturnes, an 
arrangement full of chords and crescendos, which were 
like sounds borne from seraphic harp-strings, and which 
drew from the soul involuntary sighs. 

But all at once, with a crashing discord, she ceased 
playing in the middle of the piece, as she became aware 
that Davanant stood behind her. 


80 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


He had finished his note and Gladys had gone to have 
it sent, with the parcels, up to Mademoiselle Vavaseur’s 
room. 

“I wish to thank you, Homer, for the present you so 
kindly sent me to-day,” she said, turning and facing him. 
“See, I am wearing your gift to-night.” 

As she spoke she held up one half-bare white arm, upon 
which flashed a magnificent emerald bracelet. 

“Those stones could not have a more fitting back¬ 
ground,” Davanant observed, quietly. , 

“What is the omen of this particular gem?” asked Mir¬ 
iam, slowly turning the bauble about on her wrist, and 
keeping her eyes downbent, so that he did not see the un¬ 
wonted fire in them. 

“I am not familiar with the language of gems,” he told 
her, “but let us elect the emerald as a talisman of enduring 
friendship between us. Eh, Miriam?” 

She made him some low response, and her smile seemed 
complacent, and told nothing of the violent beating of her 
heart. Later, however, as they sat at dinner, Davanant 
observed the strange pallor of her face, and also remarked 
the absence of that brilliance which usually characterized 
her repartee. All that Miriam said sounded forced and 
colorless. 

“Enduring friendship!” she reiterated, upon seeking 
her own apartment late that Christmas-eve night, and as 
she spoke her eyes emitted a fierce, lurid glare. 







AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED, 81 

Unclasping the emerald bracelet upon her arm, she flung 
it from her. 

I hate, I despise his gift! I shall never wear it!” she 
passionately averred, watching the ornament where it lay 
glittering on the floor, near her dressing table. 


82 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER X. 

A strand of splendid pearls had been given into Violet 
Vavaseur’s possession by her dying mother, together with 
the sacred amulet of De Zuniga. 

In childhood she had been made acquainted with the 
pedigree attending these Ceylon gems, and sh^e held them 
religiously as she held her chaplet, for they represented 
a long and noble lineage of women. She had promised her 
mother to retain them always, even through excess of 
pecuniary need, always, until death. 

But dearer to her still was the cross of chastened gold, 
which, as a child, she had been taught to look upon as 
an ornament especially consecrated by the saints. 

The dying Juana had clasped this about her daughter’s 
neck, even as she breathed her parting benediction, and 
Violet’s vow went heavenward with her gentle spirit, that 
it should be guarded with holy fidelity, that it should 
never, while life endured, leave her throat. 

On Christmas-eve night Violet unlocked the casket con- 



AFTER THE N1GIIT HAS PASSED. 


83 


taining her pearls, and contemplated them for the first 
time since her bereavement. Kneeling beside the bed, 
with them open before her, she strove to comprehend the 
wonderful beauty of the jewels through tear-dimmed eyes. 

But all their luster was lost to her, as the brilliance of 
the sea which bore them is lost when mists suffuse the 
sun. 

At last she sunk her face in the counterpane, and gave 
full vent to her tears. 

“Oh, santa mamma!” she moaned bitterly, how can I 
bear the anguished loneliness of these nights and days? 
Why could not my life have gone out with yours?” 

A sudden tap at her door prompted her to rise hastily 
and dry her eyes. 

“Some parcels and a note for mademoiselle,” a servant 
said, as she appeared in response to the knock. 

“For me?” she ansWered, wonderingly. 

Opening the note, she read Davanant’s words with a 
gratitude the fervency of which found vent at last in the 
low cry: 

“Oh! how noble and thoughtful of him. My darling’s 
portrait, which grief had caused me to forget! Had it 
been sold I would have mourned it always. Ah, how 
truly glad I am that it is saved—my mother’s beautiful 
image, just as she looked in life! The books, too, that 
were my father’s. She reverenced and kept them so zeal- 


84 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


ously, and I would have felt immeasurable remorse at their 
loss. Oh, my benefactor, whom I have never seen, I 
thank, I thank you from my heart for your kindly service.” 

After these words she laid the note away, then went and 
knelt beside the large square parcel, and untied the cord 
that bound the paper thereon, and put the sheets tenderly 
aside, and when the last one was removed and the soft, 
dark eyes of her mother gazed out upon her with their 
expression of infinite tenderness, solemnity and love, she 
threw her hand across her mouth to stifle a wild heart¬ 
broken wail of desolation. They were so life-like. They 
made her realize so keenly her great, irreparable loss. 

With the frantic paroxysm overcome, she Jeaned the 
picture against the wall, and, with her knees drawn up 
and her hands locked about them, sat long, gazing, with 
the silent tears coursing down her cheeks, at what had been 
her goddess, parent, friend, embodied in one being, ideal 
and immaculate. 

“What makes you cry, Mademoiselle Violet?” 

Natalie, who by Violet’s request shared her room that 
night, had wakened, and, sitting up in her crib, with eyes 
opened in wide alarm, spoke thus to her. 

Violet, by a great effort, checked her tears, and, rising, 
went toward the little bed. 

“How can I answer her?” she questioned herself. “I 
cannot say: ‘My mother has lain in her grave but a fort- 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


85 


night I am crying because of my sore bereavement/ My 
mission here is not to heap my sorrow on the uncompre- 
hensive heart of a ewe-lamb” 

“Lie down, darling, and sleep again,” she said, softly, 
and would have placed th^_golden head back upon the 
pillow, but Natalie strenuously demurred. 

“No, no!” she cried, “how can I sleep when you are cry- 
ing, mademoiselle? Why don’t your mamma come and 
take you in her arms and rock you in the rocking-chair? 
My mamma does that when I cry.” 

“Hush, oh, hush, dear heart,” murmured Violet. “My 
mamma cannot come to me. She is a saint, in heaven.” 

“I know where is heaven,” lisped the baby voice. “It 
is up where the stars are. My papa is there, too. My 
papa used to take me in his arms, and lift me high, oh! so 
high. He was bigger than Nunc Homer. You have 
never seen my Nunc Homer, have you, mademoiselle?” 

Violet shook her head. 

“And my papa used to bring me lots of goodies and 
toys at Christmas, and he did tell me booful stories about 
Mother Goose, and Red Riding Hood, and Blue Beard. 
Oh! take me up and rock me, please, won’t you, made¬ 
moiselle? I am so tired. I do so want to see my lovely 
papa; but he will never come back to me from the stars!” 
And the child threw herself upon Violet’s breast, weeping 
convulsively. 


86 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


She held the shorn lamb closely there, and, as she 
rocked, sang softly: 

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight. 

Make me a child again, just for to-night! 

Mother, come back from that echoless shore, 

Take me again to your s 4 ieart, as of yore; 

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep— 

Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep! 

As she ceased singing she seemed to hear these answer¬ 
ing words awaken from the silence of the room, and float 
there like notes from a harpsichord: 

“Be comforted, my darling child; you are always in my 
arms. I guard you in your orphanage just as I did before. 
I walk by you in the day time; I watch through the long, 
dark nights. You have but to call, and I’ll come to you, 
from the echoless shore.” 

She listened, and as each word sank deep into her soul, 
a smile transfigured her face—a smile which lingered there 
all through her sleep that night. 

During the latter days of spring Mrs. Davanant sent a 
retinue of servants to Heartsease, her summer villa, in the 
Santa Lucia mountains, where she soon repaired, in com¬ 
pany with her sister, Mademoiselle Vavaseur and Natalie. 

Here Violet immediately began to retrieve some of her 
natural vivacity of spirit, while gradually a tinge of color 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


87 


came back to the clear olive of her cheek, and her dark and 
soulful eyes spoke less of pensive melancholy. 

But every day that passed she would long for a glimpse 
of that beloved grave at Mount Calvary, wishing that she 
could place fresh flowers thereupon, as had been her reg¬ 
ular daily habit ere they left the city. 

The time came, however, when she could kiss without 
tears the crucifix of De Zuniga. This seemed to Violet 
too holy a thing to wear for curious eyes to rest upon, 
so she kept it carefully concealed beneath the bosom of 
her gown, and each morning she prayed that God would 
grant her a life of purity and nobleness worthy of its 
graven beauty. ^ 

At Heartsease she soon became content, happy, even. 

She and the child Natalie were seldom apart. Usually 
in the mornings they would saunter down into the flower- 
sweet, pine-shaded canyons, lingering there for hours, in 
search of birds’-nests or the white cocoon of the chrysalis, 
often watching the grand metamorphosis of the larve as it 
left its silken web, a beautiful, bright-winged butterfly, 
and sometimes helping the dazed creature to make its 
trial flight in air. 

Again they would sit beside a narrow stream that purled 
down an oak-clad hill-side, and along whose margin grew 
amazing symphonies of biftter-cup, blue-bell, lupine and 
golden eschscholtzia, which flowers they would weave into 
fairy amulets, returning home adorned with them. 


88 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


It was one serene May noon-tide that, after one of their 
happy excursions, as they approached the outer gates of 
Heartsease, they came suddenly face to face with a man, 
into whose outstretched arms Natalie rushed with a loud 
and joyous cry of: 

“Nunc Homer!” 

Mr. Davanant had been East since the holidays, and 
his return had not been expected before the first or middle 
of June. 

As Mademoiselle Vavaseur stood, watching the greet¬ 
ing between Natalie and the stranger, her face paled, then 
swiftly underwent a wave of crimson. Her eyes, instinct 
with surprise, embarrassment and pleasure, dwelt steadily 
upon the handsome face of Davanant until he had put 
the child down and now advanced toward her, with un¬ 
covered head. 

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mademoiselle Vava¬ 
seur?” he said, with sober deference. 

Violet inclined her head and her lips moved, without 
audible expression. 

“My Nunc Homer is speaking to you, mademoiselle!”, 
exclaimed Natalie, and, running up, she took one of her 
hands and drew her a step toward him, whereupon Violet 
roused herself to say quickly: 

I beg your pardon, Monsieur Davanant, but this is 
very strange.” 



AFTER THE NIGHT; HAS PASSED * 89 

There was a slight pause, and then she went on with 
more composure: 

“I am greatly surprised, monsieur, to recognize in you 
the gentleman who so kindly befriended me at the anti¬ 
quarian’s last Christmas. Only this moment am I made 
aware that my indebtedness yet extends to you so im¬ 
measurably for this my present happy home and the loyal 
friendship of Mrs. Davanant, your sister-in-law. Oh! my 
kind benefactor,” she added, unable to restrain a sudden 
rush of tears, “words are inadequate to express my grati¬ 
tude at such service as yours has been.” 

She was not ashamed that he saw her tears; she leaned 
slightly forward and they dropped down on the dead pine 
needles at her feet, and she was conscious of the fixed and 
earnest gaze he regarded her with, as she stood before 
him in that attitude of humble reverence. 

“Mademoiselle Vavaseur,” he spoke presently, in that 
grave, low tone which characterized him, “you are in¬ 
debted to me nothing—absolutely nothing. If I have been 
the agent of any felicity in your present life it is due wholly 
to the fate that led us to meet that night at the antiquari¬ 
an’s. Had it not been for the little volume of Voltaire, I 
would not have found you that next day—likely would 
never again, and so I shall always regard The Tragedy 
of Zaire’ as a talisman, especially and providentially de¬ 
signed for our joint advantage,” and he extended his hand 
to her as he finished speaking. 


90 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Unhesitatingly she suffered its warm clasp to close about 
her own. 

“Ah! monsieur,” she said softly, her face radiant now, as 
she lifted her dark eyes momentarily to his; “you are so 
unselfish. You make me feel as though I had always 
known you.” 

“That is right,” laughed Davanant, “that is as I would 
have you feel.” 

And then they entered the gate and passed slowly up the 
wide avenue, flanked by acacia tress, whose golden-berried 
bloom filled the air with delicious honeyed incense. As 
they walked on together, Natalie gamboling ahead after 
butterflies, *Davanant’s eyes scarcely ever left the face of 
the young Frenchwoman. 

Her complexion was that of the purest olive he had 
ever seen, with a warm under-glow that evinced a healthy 
current of blood; her features were the exact counterpart 
of what her mother’s had been at her age; she inherited her 
father’s eyes, but their dark-blue depths were kindled by 
the same soulful luster that had looked from out Juana’s 
own; there was a curvature of her white neck, which was 
not unlike the swan’s, and her head, massed in its shining 
jetty curls, rested upon it with a poise that was imperial. 

It was not in particular, however, her marvelous beauty 
of face, nor her curved throat, nor her queenly bearing that 
fascinated Davanant. Her loveliness appealed, it is true, 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


91 


to his artistic soul, but above this he divined, by his natur¬ 
ally keen perception, her superior caste of character. He 
had read Violet Vavaseur at a glance, and it required no 
acquaintance of weeks or months for him to recognize 
in her the one woman whom he could love, nay, worship, 
with his whole intense and constant nature. Perhaps, 
the realization of all that she could be to him had taken 
place in his mind during the moment that he had stood, 
in that chamber of death, some months previous, looking 
down on her inanimate features; perhaps this realization 
had prompted that impulse of protection on his part to¬ 
ward her, in her orphanage; perhaps that realization had 
been the incentive of his long absence at the East. How¬ 
ever, it was true, he loved her, and did not eschew a self¬ 
acknowledgment of his passion, that day, as they ap¬ 
proached Heartsease in the noontide sun-glow and with 
the fragrance of acacia blooms shed about them. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 




CHAPTER XI. 

Heartsease, the summer villa of Mrs. Davanant, stood 
in a secluded canyon, at the base of an escarpment of 
mountains which overlook the ocean and the valley of 
Monterey, with its forests of oak and pine, and its broad 
reaches of fair, cultivated lands. 

This rural home boasted no ostentatious mode of archi¬ 
tecture, but was, nevertheless, charming, with its red-tiled 
roof, its clock-tower and mullion windows, and its long, 
rambling verandas, which offered their vine-shaded cor¬ 
ners for the summer idler’s repose. 

The garden, expanding widely about the house on every 
side, was ideal, with its smooth and rolling lawn, its minia¬ 
ture forests of catalpa, olive, orange, pomegranate and 
magnolia, and its queer little flower-beds, in which flour¬ 
ished all manner of blossoms common to a semi-tropical 
climate. 

There were some wide trellises set at varied angles here 
and there, and these formed battlements for all kinds 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 93 

of climbing roses and the purple-tasseled wistaria, while 
an ample, rotunda-shaped summer-house gave its rose- 
clad precinct for a quiet flirtation or an afternoon siesta, 
within ear-shot of playing fountain-waters. It was in this 
latter retreat that Miss Vernoys had been loitering all 
morning over a new French novel, having finished which 
she had cut some roses and was in the act of assorting 
them when the sound of voices prompted her to glance 
from her occupation through the lattice work in front of 
her. Then it was that her hand closed with a sudden 
spasmodic tenacity about her roses—a tenacity that caused 
a sharp thorn to pierce her palm, thus provoking from her 
a cry of pain. 

But the little wound thus inadvertently sustained was 
nothing compared to the quick, suffocating pulsation of 
her heart. In her agitation Miriam neglected to wipe the 
stain of blood from her hand as she gathered up the rest 
of her roses andTastily left the rotunda. 

“Davanant is here,” she announced to her sister, as she 
entered the house a moment later. 

“Davanant is here—where?” cried Gladys, in a tone 
of amazement. 

“He is just crossing the lawn, with Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur and Natalie,” said Miriam. 

“How like him to come upon us unexpected. I am 
glad there is a good luncheon!” exclaimed her sister, rising 
in a little flurry of elation. 


94 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

“You have been complaining of Heartsease being dull, 
Miriam,” she added, “and now the remedy is at hand.” 

Miriam responded with a little low, half-nervous laugh, 
and her sister did not observe the unusual pallor of her 
face, nor the agitated manner in which she arranged 
the roses for the luncheon table. 

“You see we are not standing with ‘gaping mouths that 
testify surprise/ ” Gladys said as her brother-in-law entered 
the room, and she offered her cheek to be kissed. 

“Why didn’t you telegraph us to meet you? When did 
you return from New York? How in the world did you 
get here?” she asked, breathlessly. 

“'What an inquisition!” laughed Davanant. “I got back 
yesterday. I came up on horse-back.” Then he turned 
to greet Miriam. He started slightly at the sight of blood 
upon the hand she gave him. 

“Ah!” she said, observing the stain now for the first 
time. “I pierced my hand with a thorn.” 

“So sorry,” said Davanant, and to further demonstrate 
his sympathy, he raised the wounded member to his lips 
and kissed it lightly. 

At that touch a sort of shivering ecstasy thrilled through 
Miriam. 

She turned quickly away and resumed her arrangement 
of the flowers. 

“You found your ride somewhat laborious, did you 
not?” she asked, complacently. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Not at all,” he replied. “The boy who came to take the 
horse back knew an easy trail, and the morning was per¬ 
fect for the jaunt. I have too little of that sort o’ exercise, 
but I intend riding much while here. Oh! I say, Miriam,” 
he added gaily, “with yourself, Gladys and Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur to accompany me we’ll make quite an equestrian 
party?” 

“Does mademoiselle ride?” asked Miriam, bending a 
little lower over the rose-bowl. 

“If not, she can easily learn,” replied Davanant. 

Late on the same afternoon Miriam entered the veranda, 
where Violet was assiduously engaged with a piece of fine 
needle work. 

Immediately the latter was seized with the vague sense 
of uneasiness which she always felt in the presence of this 
woman, who, she intuitively knew, disliked her, and 
this feeling increased as she became aware that Miss Ver- 
noys was watching her fixedly over the pages of her novel. 

At last her eyes wandered from her embroidery to those 
surreptitious ones. 

“I was just wondering, mademoiselle,” said Miriam, 
laying down her book, “if you would care to learn the art 
of riding. It is an art to ride well, you know.” 

“Certainly, and one that is hard to master, I should 
judge,” softly replied Violet. “I am sure I should love 
being in the saddle,” she went on in that peculiarly mellow 






96 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

accent which partook of the Spanish and which Miriam 
could never hear without secret envy. “And often since 
we have been at Heartsease I have been tempted to try 
Virgil, as Mrs. Davanant pronounces him entirely trust¬ 
worthy. Do you think I could learn, Miss Vernoys?” 

Miriam shrugged her shoulders. 

“Oh, I presume so,” she said, with a peculiar smile, and 
in a contemptuous tone, which Mademoiselle did not seem 
to observe. 

“I have noticed that you are an excellent horsewoman,” 
she remarked. 

“Oh, thank you>” said the other, her lip curling just 
perceptibly at the compliment. Then as Mr. Davanant, 
her sister and Natalie entered the veranda, she turned 
to them. 

“Well, have you left off botanizing?” she asked Homer, 
as he went toward her, two half-blown roses in his hand. 

He threw himself indolently recumbent on the steps 
at her feet, looking in his white flannel suit a model of 
masculine grace. 

“No,” he said, in answer to her query; “I want your 
authority apropos this rosebud. Gladys says it is the 
niphetos, and I have made her a wager that it’s the cloth- 
of-gold.” 

Miriam took the flower he held toward her. 

“Well, then, you have lost your wager,” she said. “Cer¬ 
tainly it is the niphetos.” 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


97 


“But please explain how you make the distinction. No, 
keep it—I brought it for you.” 

Well, first,” said Miriam, “it is not so strongly tinted 
as your similar creation; second, its petals are of a lighter 
texture; third, its odor is more delicate. I wish I had a 
cloth-of-gold rose, so as to prove to you what I say, but 
Gladys has none.” 

“Pll take your word for it,” said Davanant, lazily, and 
in good-natured submission to defeat. “Gladys, I’ll send 
you the box of bon-bons the first time I go to the city,” 
he added, watching Miriam as she fastened his favor 
among the lace at her breast. 

Suddenly a pair of soft arms closed about his neck, 
and a voice said: 

“Mademoiselle Violet does love red roses, Nunc Homer. 
Is the red one for her?” 

Davanant’s face flushed to the hue of the flower he 
twirled delicately between his finger and thumb. 

“Yes,” he replied in answer to Natalie’s question. “Pre¬ 
sent it to mademoiselle with my compliments, cherc en¬ 
fant,” and kissing the upturned lips, he gave the flower to 
her, and watched as she delivered it with a ludicrous little 
courtesy to Violet, who met his lustrous glance for an 
instant and murmured a low: 

“Thanks, monsieur.” 

At this juncture Miriam, with a half muttered excuse, 




■ . 


98 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

left the veranda and did not reappear. The sitting-room 
windows being open, sounds came issuing presently from 
that quarter that made Davanant inwardly cringe. It was 
the “Tannhauser,” and must have made the spirit of the 
divine Wagner come down in dire vengeance from heaven. 

“The piano is badly in need of tuning. Send word to 
Mauvais’,” said Davanant. 

“It was tuned only last month,” returned his sister-in- 
law. “The fault,” she added, “is in Miriam. She plays 
wretchedly to-day.” 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


99 


CHAPTER XII. 

An ultramarine sky, dashed with cloud-fleece, the air 
sweet with intermingled perfume of blossoms and ripened 
fruit, and vibrating with the psalmody of birds. 

A more serene afternoon could not have been granted 
for Violet Vavaseur’s first equestrian lesson. Mounted 
on Virgil, a sleek black pony, which Gladys frequently 
rode, and which was docile as a fawn, she cantered away 
with Davanant, her volunteered tutor, who rode a beauti¬ 
ful, champing steed, and the breeze wafted her happy 
laughter back to Gladys and Natalie, who had walked to 
the outer gates to watch them off. 

Deep into the intricacies of wood they plunged, where 
brilliant galaxies of California flora greeted them at every- 
step. Here were mammoth oaks, moss-hoary, vine-tan¬ 
gled, age-bent; there a tiny forest of pines, massed tall and 
dark, and breathed to them sweet, spicy odors; now the 
lupine appeared in ^lac-plumed battalions, and the esch- 
scholtzia flashed out golden stars amid a wide expanse 


100 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


of baby-blue-eyes, making the earth a firmament of glory; 
here was a fastness of fern, into which ambush a myriad of 
quail scurried upon their approach; there was a pyramid 
of grey rock, prosaic enough in its natural state, but pic¬ 
turesquely beautiful in its mantle of wild ivy; the golden 
lark trilled out glad roulades in the arched trees under 
which they passed, while from some remote quarter issued 
the wood-dove’s, gentle call, quickly followed by answer 
of its mate: 

“Here—love—love—here.” 

Down the detorious mountain road the youthful pair 
of riders went, across a series of rude bridges that spanned 
a stream, which for an interval purled along the canyon in 
a placid crystal aisle, then resolved itself into white-capped 
rapids that bounded Itrom rock to rock, making music 
like that of many tinkling bells, and at last lost itself to 
view and murmured on in sad monotone, which might 
have been mistaken for the whispering of lost spirits. 

Sometimes they halted, to dwell briefly upon some ex¬ 
quisite bit of scenery, and it was during one of these mo¬ 
ments that there came to them from afar the low and pro¬ 
longed vibration of a bell, at which sound Mademoiselle 
Vavase'ur turned her eyes, full of inquiry upon Davanant. 

“Some one is sounding the angelus at the old mission 
church of Carmelo,” he explained. ^ 

“Some day,” he pursued, “when you have grown more 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 101 

accustomed to the saddle, mademoiselle, we will ride there. 
It is one of the most prominent historic points in Califor¬ 
nia, and I am sure the ancient pictures and statues in the 
restored chapel will interest you.” 

Yes,” Violet returned; “I have read much about that 
sacred relic of the ancient missionaries, and I have always 
desired to see the spot where Father Junipero is buried. 
I once visited the old church of Dolores in San Francisco, 
and enjoyed looking at the paintings and the. shrines and 
the altar-relics; but the cemetery!” She paused with a 
visible shudder. “I have had an abiding horror of death 
ever since I entered there!” 

Davanant, who had also visited the acre of indescribable 
decay alluded to, well understood the feeling of revolt it 
had engendered in one whose nature was so finely or¬ 
ganized, and he promptly entered upon a more exhilarat¬ 
ing topic of conversation. 

“There are numerous points well worth visiting about 
here,” he said. “You would particularly like the pebble- 
beach and the red-wood forests, where there are trees 
almost touching heaven, and so large in circumference that 
a small family can comfortably abide in one.” 

You are a patriot, monsieur,” observed Violet, a quick 
wave of color crossing her face as she met Davanant’s eyes 
for an instant. 

“Well,” he remarked, “perhaps I am. I have been a 


102 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


considerable traveler, and after having seen almost every 
country of the globe, I find that for natural attractions 
California stands foremost, unique, a veritable Venus 
among the galaxy. It is,” he went on, “a somewhat ex¬ 
asperating fact that Californians, generally speaking, live 
in almost absolute ignorance of the sublime work Nature 
has accorded their state. Many of them will travel through 
the East and Europe, and go into enthusiasms over an or¬ 
dinary waterfall or glacier, while at the same time they 
could not give a foreigner the faintest idea of our Yosem- 
ite Valley, our Geysers, our red-woods or Santa Lucia, 
Santa Inez and Shasta mountain scenery,” and the speak¬ 
er’s eyes flashed with the fervor of his words. 

“Should you mind telling me something of your travels, 
monsieur?” asked Violet. “If you have visited Yucatan I 
would love especially to hear about those mysterious 
runed cities—Uxmal, Valladolid and Merida, the latter 
being my mother’s birthplace. I have a bunch of pressed 
flowers that were taken from a sacred garden, which for 
years my mother fostered among the ruins of an isolated 
temple near to which my grandmother and great-grand¬ 
mother are buried.” 

Davanant, being familiar with the places referred to, 
complied with her request, and so vivid were his descrip¬ 
tions that his listener seemed to wander in reality through 
those prehistoric, half-buried cities, where Mario Vava- 














, 










































* 

































































































s 


























































































* - • • • ■ • ‘ 






















































. 






























































\ 












. 











AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


103 


seur and his bride had passed the first blissful days of 
their honeymoon, twenty years previous, all-unconscious 
of the “dark angel” that insidiously pursued them with 
its decree of doom. 

From Yucatan he transported her to Italy. They 
glided together over moon-lit Venitian waters; they loi¬ 
tered in the sculpture galleries and catacombs of Rome; 
they ascended Pincian Hill, and from its summit looked 
upon the castle of St. Angelo, and across the Tiber, to 
that master-piece of ecclesiastical architecture, the Cathe¬ 
dral of St. Peter; they explored renowned ruins reminis¬ 
cent of the splendor of past ages. 

Suddenly Davanant ceased speaking and before Violet 
realized his movement he grasped Virgil’s bridle and 
turned the horses round by a quick, skillful maneuver. 

Look at those clouds, mademoiselle!” he exclaimed, 
pointing westward, where a dark, ominous mass had 
gathered in the sky, half obscuring the low sun; “we are 
going to have a genuine thunder-storm.” 

Violet looked in amazement. 

Over the landscape there was slowly descending a 
transparent haze, which seemed to hold all the prismatic 
colors of the rainbow, and through which the hills ap¬ 
peared like spectral shapes. 

The air became oppressive, and was deathly still. 

“I am afraid that unless we ride fast we will not be able 


106 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


to reach Heartsease before the rain commences. These 
storms are swift and impetuous travelers. Do you think 
you could lope, mademoiselle?” said Davanant, a little 
uneasily. 

“Oui, monsieur. Allons!” cried Violet, delighted at 
the idea. And away she darted ahead of her companion, 
laughing her clear-ringing, free laughter, which he loved 
so to hear. 

He caught up with her, and they loped steadily on, 
he commenting encouragingly upon her riding, but anx¬ 
ious lest she become fatigued. 

This, however, Violet declared she never would. 

“It is like being rocked in a cradle,” she told him. And 
onward they went, reaching the villa in a delightful glow 
of exhilaration, just as the first rain drops commenced 
to fall, and a loud peal of thunder went reverberating the 
hills around, signalling the advancement of the storm. 

The wind rose passionately now, aiid soon was sough¬ 
ing through the trees like a thousand fury fiends, while 
occasional zigzag flashes crossed the heavens and thick 
sheets of water commenced to descend. 

Davanant and Violet stood on the west veranda, where 
in silence they watched the storm until its passion was 

full spent, and the sun burst resplendent from the clouds 
sending farewell glances over the purified landscape’ 

making every tree and bush and shrub to scintillate like 
details in a fairy spectacle. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 107 

When the rumbling of thunder had subsided in the dis¬ 
tance and the winds were hushed to peace, Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur raised her eyes to Davanant’s and exclaimed, 
a quavering rapture in her voice: 

“Ah! was it not beautiful beyond all expression, mon¬ 
sieur?” 

But some of the elation of her face died out when, 
glancing toward the sitting-room window, she saw Miriam 
Vernoys gazing toward them with eyes that seemed to 
have caught in their depths some of the lightning’s lurid 
fire. 


i 



108 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

A few people had been asked to Heartsease for a garden 
party, on which occasion Mrs. Davanant’s term of mourn¬ 
ing not having expired, Miriam officiated as hostess. 

Queenly enough she appeared, standing between two 
rose trellises, greeting her guests as th£y passed into pre¬ 
cincts that realized a vision of Elysium. The wistaria had 
lived out its brief season, but in its place there now ap¬ 
peared brilliant constellations of the passion-flower, in 
scarlet, pink and purple, while magnolia and oleander 
blossoms mingled their fragrance with that of myriads 
of roses, making the air a very potpourri of sweetness. 

The shady rotunda had been converted into a kiosk, 
where ices were served by maids in oriental costumes, and 
the music from stringed instrumeflts filled the air with 
measures to which fantastic toes would have delighted 
in keeping time, but no provision having been made for 
dancing, the guests contended themselves with saunter¬ 
ing about the grounds, playing tennis or loitering in 
groups near the refreshment booth. * 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 109 

It was at the latter rendezvous that Audrey Westphal 
and his piquant blonde sister, Vivian, were eating a 
sherbet. An exemplary white^flannel suit set off to ad¬ 
vantage the fair, bisque-like complexion and golden, curl¬ 
ing hair of this youth, who had just finished his course at 
West Point, and who held himself in a degree of esteem 
so consequential that on this occasion he fancied his 
white-flanneled anatomy to be the cynosure of at least 
half a dozen pairs of adoring feminine eyes. This belief 
engendered within the heart of the young cadet such a 
longing to be liberated from his sister’s side that when 
Thurston Douglas, an ardent admirer of Vivian’s, pres¬ 
ently joined them, he embraced the opportunity, and, with 
a half-muttered apology, betook himself speedily across 
the lawn toward a trio of girls who stood near a large 
marguerite bush, telling their fortunes with pet^. 

“He loves me—oh, Mr. Westphal!” suddenly broke off 
Miss Lovelace, noting his approach. . “Have you been 
over to the glen to see those beautiful deer?” ' 

Audrey beamed upon the fair questioner. 

“No—aw—really—I haven’t had that pleasuah,” he 
answered, with a drawl which he imagined was “charm¬ 
ingly English.” “I—aw—have been informed they are 
adowable cweatures,” he added, “and—aw—if one of you 
ladies^-aw—pawdon me—all of you—would accompany 
me, I should be delighted.” 


110 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“So sorry, but we have all just this moment returned 
from the glen,” replied Miss Lovelace, and her companions 
both echoed with due gravity and empressement: 

“So sorry!” Then one of them cried: 

“Here comes Dr. Eversley with our ices, girls ” Where¬ 
upon Audrey laughingly declared: 

“I think that an extwemely cool dismissal,” and, lifting 
his hat, sauntered off alone, in the direction of the deer- 
glen. 

Arriving there duly, he found a score of animals, with 
the “large, floating orbs” peculiar to their kind, and pos¬ 
sessing that characteristic grace of attitude which Rosa 
Bonheur delights in portraying. But Westphal mentally 
declared that walking a full quarter of a mile in the noon¬ 
day heat just to look at the commonplace quadrupeds 
was a “beastly bore,” while, to add to his discomfiture, his 
gaiters were covered with dust, and the hems of his im¬ 
maculate trousers were thickly fringed with fox-tails, 
caught in crossing a bit of pasture, by which he had 
thought to abbreviate his walk. 

He sat down on a large flat rock and began assiduously 
to relieve himself of these affectionate appendages, when 
all at once a subdued murmur of voices came to his ear. 

Glancing curiously about him, he soon perceived, seated 
under the wide-spreading shade of a live-oak tree, several 
yards distant, a beautiful girl, in pure-white, with a child 
beside her. 


Ill 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

The former was reading from a book, lying open in her 
lap, while upon her face the eyes of her wee companion 
were fixed in rapt attention. 

Presently the reading was concluded, the book was 
closed, and after a moment the young girl asked softly: 

“Now, what can you tell me about the elephant, Na¬ 
talie ?” 

“In his native forests,” came the ready, lisping re¬ 
sponse, “the elephant takes fruit from the trees for food, 
and breaks the branches that are in his way, with his long 
trunk. If treated kindly, the elephant shows that he is— 
he is—oh, mademoiselle, I forget.” 

“That he is grateful, which means thankful,” prompted 
the fair tutor. 

“Yes,” went on the little one, “and I know some more, 
mademoiselle. They feed him with hay and whole quar¬ 
ters of bread. And—would you believe it—be eats his 
straw bed.” 

“Excellent, my love!” cried mademoiselle, fondling the 
child’s golden curls. “You learn with surprising readi¬ 
ness.” 

“Yes, I learn of you, dear mademoiselle. I do not learn 
of my nurse, Fiorina, though, because Fiorina scolds, and 
shakes and pinches me. Now, shall I speak ‘One Dolly’s 
Ride’?” 

“Yes, little fairy, do speak ‘One Dolly’s Ride.’” 



112 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

At the sound of a strange voice they both started and 
silently gazed about them. 

Then, as Violet’s eyes encountered the laughing ones 
of Audrey Westp'hal her face grew scarlet. 

“How do you do, Natalie?” he said, evading by an effort 
those beautiful, questioning orbs. “Are you not going to 
speak your little piece?” 

The child stared at the intruder in sullen silence. 

Then, as mademoiselle sat surprised and deeply annoyed 
by the presence of this young man, he took off his straw 
hat and threw himself recumbent on the ground a little 
apart from them. 

“Ye gods, but this is an entwancing spot!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Come, Natalie, don’t stare at me as though you 
took me for a wolf that had come to eat you, but speak 
your piece; that’s a good child.” 

“I won’t. Go away!” said Natalie, haughtily. “You 
have made mademoiselle angry, and I—we do not like 
you.” 

“No? That’s—aw—deuced bad,” said the irrepressible 
cadet, tossing his hat in the air and catching it again. 

Then he turned suddenly to Violet, who was turning 
the leaves of Natalie’s story book at random, striving to 
regain her composure, and said gravely: 

“Is it true I have offended you, mademoiselle? If so, I 
beg a thousand pardons. But, you see, I am a guest of 

























































113 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Miss Vernoys’. I walked over to get a glimpse of those 
pretty cweatures yonder in the park, and—aw—it looked 
so entwancingly cool over in the shade of this tree that I 

—aw—ventured-” He paused, coughed, blushed and 

twirled his hat vigorously on one finger. “I recognized 
Mrs. Davanant’s little daughter and ventured to approach,” 
he finished, desperately. 

Violet could not suppress a smile of amusement at this 
incoherent apology; then, too, the speaker’s face had as¬ 
sumed such a ludicrously grave expression. Almost 
against her will she yielded to the beseeching look in West- 
phal’s eyes, and said: 

“You are quite welcome to rest here, monsieur.” 

Then by degrees they fell to talking almost like natural 
acquaintances. 

The young cadet was not a bad conversationalist, and 
in the presence of the young French girl, “whose face,” 
he mentally remarked, “Raphael would have idealized,” 
he, for some reason, left off the affected drawl with 
which he had recently been wont to characterize his speech, 
and summoned his every art to make a “favorable impres¬ 
sion.” 

As he reclined in a graceful, easy posture, his elbow bent 
and his head resting on his palm, and with the sunbeams 
that sifted through the leaves above gilding all its fair 
curls, Violet could not help wondering if he did not re¬ 
semble some of the Greek gods of old. 


116 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“I am stopping with my mother and sister at Del 
Monte,” he said, when he at length rose to go, “and as 
Mr. Davanant has invited me to fish with him, I may visit 
Heartsease again in the course of a few days-” 

“You shall not talk with mademoiselle when you come,” 
Natalie interrupted him, speaking for the first time during 
the hour he had lingered by them. 

“May I not?” asked Westphal earnestly, and looking at 
Violet rather than the speaker. 

“It is possible we may meet again, monsieur,” she said, 
and there was a benign look in her beautiful eyes as she 
replied to his “good-day.” 

No sooner had the young cadet departed, whistling a 
gay air from “Robin Hood,” when Natalie fell to weeping 
convulsively, her face buried in mademoiselle’s lap. 

“Why, dearest, what is the matter?” asked Violet, alarm¬ 
ed at the sudden paroxysm. 

“I—I am afraid,” sobbed Natalie, unintelligently. 

Afraid? Why, my little love, what is there to be afraid 
of?” asked Violet. 

N. 

Mr. Westphal,” came the astonishing reply, half smoth¬ 
ered in sobs. “I am afraid he will come and—and take 
you from me, li—like the man in the sto—sto—story, who 
loved the beautiful pri—pri—princess, and rode away 
with her.” 

Violet conquered a desire to laugh outright. 


117 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Look up and dry your eyes, Natalie/’ she said, soberly. 
“All that is nonsense. I will never leave you.” 

The child smiled up at her through her tears. 

“Never, mademoiselle—never?” she asked, joyously. 

“No; never.” 

Violet Vavaseur could not discern through the golden 
mirage of that June day the small dark spot on the horizon 
of her life. 

It was destiny, bringing a dire edict by which she was 
to be persecuted—driven from Eden! 

On his way back to the gardens Audrey Westphal en¬ 
countered Davanant, who had seen fit to exile himself 
from Miriam’s gay party, and wandered in solitary medi¬ 
tation along the adjacent wall of acacias. 

He had a lighted cigar between his lips and his head 
was bent reflectively downward, so that he did not notice 
the cadet’s approach until the latter had struck him lightly 
across the shoulder with a willow switch he carried. Then 
Davanant lifted his head and paused sharply. 

“Ah, it is you, deserter?” he said. “Where in the name 
of Eros have you been? A dozen girls are looking for 
you. You are wanted on the tennis court, and-” 

“Hang tennis!” exclaimed Audrey. Then, laying one 
hand upon Davanant’s arm, he said in an ecstatic tremolo: 
“I have found her!” with which (to Davanant) enigmatic 
announcement, the speaker struck the road with his willow 



118 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


wand, causing a little swirl of dust to rise upward. 

Homer calmly blew the ash from his cigar and gazed at 
the other. 

“Whom have you found? The woman who has re¬ 
cently escaped from Agnew’s sanitarium and who is be¬ 
lieved to be hiding in these mountains somewhere?” he 
presently asked. 

Westphal mildly scoffed the question. 

“No,” he said; “I have found my ideal woman—an 
angel, with black tresses and glorious eyes. I discovered 
her sitting under an oak tree yonder by the glen, in com¬ 
pany with your audacious little niece. Davanant, tell me, 
who is my mysterious charmer?” 

Westphal spoke with much exhilaration. At his words 
the veins on Davanant’s temples distended visibly. He 
bit viciously at the end of his cigar a moment, then tossed 
it from him. 

“I suppose you have reference to Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur?” he said presently and with a quiet hauteur. 

“Yes, yes—a young Frenchwoman,” eagerly rejoined 
his companion. 

“Well,” pursued the other, still in that tone of grave dig¬ 
nity, “with regard to the personality of the lady in ques¬ 
tion, she is an orphan and composes one of the household 
at Heartsease. Mademoiselle Vavaseur, in a word, is my 
protegee.” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 119 

Westphal coughed. He felt nettled at Davanant’s tone, 
rather than his words. 

“Why do you exile your charge from the garden party?” 
he asked brusquely. 

“She is in mourning,” replied Davanant, constrainedly. 
“Besides, she is rather young for that sort o’ thing.” 

“Young?” Westphal laughed deprecatingly. “I take it 
she is quite as old as Vivian, and Vivian has been ‘out’ 
two seasons. Hark!” 

Voices were heard on the other side of the acacia wall. 
As they came nearer Audrey recognized them as those 
of Miss Lovelace and his sister. 

He peered through the vista of foliage, then darted in¬ 
stantly back, hoping the girls would pass on and leave 
himself and Davanant to talk unmolested. But Vivian 
had caught a glimpse of his blonde head, and shouted his 
name triumphantly. 

The next moment the shrubberies parted and the ladies 
joined them. 

“Luncheon is ready, Mr. Davanant,” said Audrey’s 
sister, “and Miss Vernoys dispatched us to find you. She 
says you are the Bacchus of the occasion, and, therefore, 
must come and open the champagne.” 

“Well, I’ll have the fishing,” Westphal said to himself, 
consolingly. “I will learn more about my enchantress 
then. I’ll find an opportunity to ask Miss Vernoys this 


120 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


afternoon how Davanant came to be Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur’s guardian.” 

After luncheon he hunted up Miriam, who looked upon 
the young cadet with a degree of favoritism, and now 
welcomed him cordially. 

“Aw—tell me, Miss Vernoys,” he commenced, without 
undue dalliance, “how did Davanant come to adopt that 
beautiful French girl?” 

Miriam’s lips curled contemptously. 

“Adopt her? Who said that Davanant had adopted 
her?” she asked, toying nervously, as she spoke, with a 
delicate ivory fan. 

“Well, not exactly that,” the youth corrected himself, 
“but he claims her as his protegee.” 

“Does he? Ah! there goes my fan! I hate ivory fans; 
they are perishable, as the loves of men. Did he mention 
her to you by that term?” 

She drew the ribbon attached to her broken fan into a 
hard knot as she awaited his reply. 

“Aw—yes; but as far as that goes Davanant has in¬ 
numerable proteges. I have, however, never before known 
of him retaining one under his own personal charge, as it 
seems he does this young girl. He usually finds a school, 
or some sort of employment for the subjects he picks up. 
Davanant—aw—did not pick her up, did he?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Miriam; “he found her much after the 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


121 


manner that he has found dozens of other beggars. Her 
mother died of a contagion in some nasty quarter of San 
Francisco, and he happened across mademoiselle in her 
impoverished orphanage; then he enlisted Gladys’ sym¬ 
pathies in her behalf, and wound up by establishing the 
creole—or whatever she may be—in my sister’s home.” 

“Extwadinawy!” exclaimed Audrey. “But why,” he 
questioned, “do you refer so dubiously to the young 
woman’s nationality?” 

“Well,” Miriam replied, her gray eyes becoming nar¬ 
row and dark with latent viciousness, “it seems her father 
was a New Orleans Frenchman and her mother a native 
of Yucatan. I take it that is obscure enough.” 

“Not necessarily obscure,” remarked Audrey. “Surely, 
if ever I saw a patrician face, hers is one, and her man¬ 
ners are beyond reproach. If she is poor, she is certainly 
refined, and possesses the hauteur of a queen.” He spoke 
with an empressement that caused Miriam’s eyes to open 
wide. She fastened them quizzically upon his face. 

“You droll fellow,” she laughingly observed; “is it pos¬ 
sible you are in love with mademoiselle?” 

“I—aw—yes; I honestly believe I am in love with her, 
Miss Miriam,” the youth fold her, with a little heightening 
color on his “bisque” cheek. 

Miss Vernoys drew her breath in with surprise. 

“How did you come to lose your heart thus suddenly? 


122 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Where did you see Mademoiselle Vavaseur?” she asked, 
with an animation that impressed her companion as being 
a little strange, compared with her recent cool and deris¬ 
ive tone. 

“I saw her incidentally,” .he told her, “while at the deer- 
park this forenoon, and it is the old but ever strange 
story—love at first sight.” 

“Ah, indeed!” 

“Yes. And Davanant has said something about my 
coming up to Heartsease soon for a few days’ trout-fishing. 
When I am a guest in the house a meeting between Mad¬ 
emoiselle Vavaseur and myself could easily be arranged. 
Should you mind arranging it, Miss Miriam?” 

Westphal spoke with a celerity unusual in him, and his 
eyes were full of grave wistfulness as he fixed them upon 
the countenance of his companion, awaiting her reply. 

“No,” Miriam said presently, her face a trifle pale. “I 
shall not mind, Audrey. But you must be discreet; Dava¬ 
nant must not suspect your attachment, else you might 
find him a difficult impediment between you and the ob¬ 
ject of it.” 

Audrey nodded intelligently. 

‘“She means,” he told himself as he quitted her side a 
moment later, “that I might find Davanant a difficult rival. 
And I have already given him ground for suspicion by 
telling him that Mademoiselle Vavaseur realized my ‘ideal 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


123 


woman.’ What a consummate idiot I am! What a com¬ 
plication it is, anyway. Miriam is plainly jealous of Mad¬ 
emoiselle Vavaseur and I am furiously jealous of Dava- 
nant. Drama, in which Audrey Westphal has the role of 
villain. Goes in to win the love of philanthropist’s beauti¬ 
ful protegee!” 




124 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

About a week subsequent to the garden party Dava- 
nant, Miss Vernoys and Violet went for a ride, their ob¬ 
jective point being the mission of Carmelo, which restored 
relic of ancient Californian architecture is of curious in¬ 
terest to the traveler of the present century from all parts 
of the globe. 

Miss Vernoys’ fashionable habit of dark-green cloth 
showed her fine figure to advantage, and beside the model 
of equestrian grace she presented Violet looked amateur¬ 
ish to a degree, but none the less lovely, because her rid¬ 
ing costume was made of some inexpensive black material 
whose lightness yielded to the coquetry of the breeze, while 
Miriam’s never swerved from its symmetrical folds. 

The latter recognized her own unrivaled skill in the sad¬ 
dle, and Faust, her fine, champing black steed, had been 
trained up to the highest arts of stepping. Probably she 
had premedidated to impress mademoiselle on this occa¬ 
sion with her inferiority as a horsewoman, as she would 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


125 


frequently dart ahead of the latter and Davanant and per¬ 
form some graceful manege, which Violet, being so deep¬ 
ly interested in the ever varying beauty of the road over 
which they passed, paid little heed to; and had it been 
otherwise, she would have felt nothing of envy in her 
heart. 

It was early in the afternoon when the party arrived 
at the time-fretted wall enclosure, round which the olive, 
palm and pomegranate still blend their rich foliage, and 
which, in themselves, give the modern visitor some con¬ 
ception of the luxury in which the missionary fathers 
lived. 

Miriam announced that she would not dismount. 

“It is so monotonous rambling through a lot of dark 
corridors and climbing crazy stairs,” she said. “Besides, 
I have seen the ancient statuary, books and paintings 
dozens of times. If you are not too long, Homer,” she 
added, “I will await you here.” 

Davanant lifted Mademoiselle Vavaseur from the sad¬ 
dle, secured their horses, and they started toward the re¬ 
stored temple. 

Miriam watched them until they vanished behind the 
outer wall, then her eyes wandered to the bell-tower of 
the church, to and from which the swallows flew, nest¬ 
building, and they shone with a strange luster as they 
followed the movements of the birds. 


126 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“How changed he is toward me,” she bitterly reflected. 
“Violet Vavaseur came into his life, and 'has overshadowed 
me.” 

With an audible sigh she soon left off regarding the 
circling swallows, and gave Faust the reins. 

He started with her on a mad lope down the road, toward 
the sea. 

Her blood pulsed warm and fast with the invigorating 
exercise, and the fresh sea air had an effect upon her like 
champagne. On, on she rode, never slacking her mad gait, 
until at length she came to a high, shelving rock, which 
overlooked the infinite stretch of blue and sun-kissed 
waters. Guiding her horse up to the very verge of this 
parapet, she brought him to a halt. 

“Stand here, my good Faust,” she said. “Stand, while 
I rest my soul. Stand, while I tell the sea my woe. She 
came into his life and overshadowed me! Sob, sob, oh! 
sympathetic waters, and tell me how I may find a way to 
revenge myself upon the woman I hate. Do you hear? 
I hate, I hate, I hate Mademoiselle Vavaseur!” 

Meanwhile Davanant and Violet were alone in the 
ancient church. 

The solitude about them was of the profundity of a 
tomb, and the gloom of the holy sancutary held a strange 
witchery, whose influence made itself felt to each alike. 
As they passed from one corridor into another she was 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


127 


conscious of an exhilaration like that produced by the 
drinking of rare wine. Led by Davanant through those 
mysterious passages was to Violet the sweetest of experi¬ 
ences. Now and then he took her hand to guide her safely 
over some obstruction, and mingling in his voice when he 
spoke to her there was a tenderness whose magnetism 
reached her soul. 

The paintings and statues and legendary shrines failed 
to charm her as did the eyes she frequently felt bent upon 
her with a luster whose meaning she did not as yet di¬ 
vine. 

Davanant argued no mild synonym for the passion 
that filled his heart. He knew that he loved her, and as 
he gazed into Violet’s soulful eyes he read there some¬ 
thing that made him satisfied. 

Had Eros whispered his strange secret to mademoiselle 
on that June afternoon she would have answered incredu¬ 
lously: “You are mistaken. Why, he is familiar with 
all that is fairest in life. He is worthy the love of a very 
queen. I am of his life the most inconsiderable part—I 
am only a humble violet growing in his garden, and yet 
you say he, my benefactor, stoops to take me to his heart 
—to love me!” And she would either have laughed in 
derision, or wept in the bitter humiliation that conscious 
ridicule brings to one of her sensitive nature. 

They had exhausted the treasure of the old church, 


128 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


and were passing out by the main corridor, when, from 
the shadows of an archway before them, a man suddenly 
emerged. 

He stooped slightly and his hair, was white with age. 

As he was vested in the cassock of a priest Violet paus¬ 
ed, crossed herself and made a low obeisance, while Dav¬ 
anant performed similar devotions. 

“Peace be with you, my children,” the priest spoke, in 
a voice that quavered a trifle. “And are you strangers 
within this church, noble relic of the country’s fathers?” 

“My companion, your reverence, has been viewing its 
treasure for the first time, but I myself have been familiar 
with Carmelo for many years,” answered Davanant. 

“My eyes are dim. I see but imperfectly thy two forms, 
beloved, but I take it you are both young?” 

“Yes, we are young, Father,” said Homer. 

“And are you man and wife?” 

“No, your reverence.” 

Davanant was glad the darkness hid his face, it burned 
so at the priest’s last question. 

“I would thee grace,” murmured the aged apostle, with 
which benediction Jie touched his forehead, and moved 
past them. Davanant and his companion left the church 
and crossed the way intervening between it and the outer 
walls, both strangely silent. 

They were surprised to find that Miriam was not waiting 


■ 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 129 

for them, as she had promised, and, duly mounted, they 
rode back alone over the road they had come. 

They had scarcely left the old mission a mile behind 
them when Miss Vernoys appeared in sight of it from the 
opposite direction. 

As she drew near the spot where Davanant and Violet’s 
horses had been tied a surprised ejaculation burst from 
her: 

“They are gone!” 

She -was obliged, however, to keep her anger at this dis¬ 
covery under restraint, as a priest stood there near the 
wall, awaiting her approach, with a manner that seemed 
deeply agitated. She halted at a signal from him and 
crossed herself. 

The padre was very gray and he tottered slightly as he 
went up to her side. 

“Art thou, daughter, the visitor with whom I had brief 
converse in the church a while ago?” he questioned trem- 
orausly. ' 

“No, father, I have not visited the church to-day,” Mir¬ 
iam answered, marveling at the question. 

“This crucifix,” continued the priest, holding up to her 
view the amulet of De Zuniga, which sacred legacy Violet, 
in some unaccountable manner, had dropped during her 
late visit in the church, “I found in the chapel yonder. It 
is an ancient and very valuable ornament, which, I hap- 



130 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


pen to know, belonged to one Madame Vavaseur, whose 
whereabouts I have been striving to locate for many 
weary months. There has been a vast fortune left in 
Mexico to the lady in question, and I surrendered my 
church office there to undertake the restoration of her 
inheritance to one in whom I have always felt a deep 
anxiety and interest. Madame Vavaseur came to this 
state from Mexico in company with her husband quite 
twenty years ago now, since which time no word, strange 
to relate, has ever been heard in relation to her or hers. 

I have been touring the state in a systematic search for 
the heiress, and now coming upon this cross, so accident¬ 
ally, I feel moved by a fervent belief that God caused it to 
be placed in my path as a guide to my attainment. I. 
came out,” the speaker added, “devoutly hoping to see 
the young lady and gentleman with whom I exchanged a 
few words in the chapel a little while since. The thought 
had crossed me that one of them might possibly bear a re¬ 
lationship to Madame Juana Vavaseur, which fact would 
be synonymous with the death of the latter, as her vow 
was registered never to part with the cross of De Zuniga 
while her life lasted.” 

“In case of Madame Vavaseur's death, I presume the 
fortune of which you speak would pass to her progeny— 
if she left any?” questioned Miriam, whose lips, it seemed, 
had grown too white and rigid to admit of any speech. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


131 


“Certainly, oh, certainly! There is a codicil in the will 
to that effect,” replied the priest. Then he put one hand 
up to his eyes to shut out the glaring sunlight, and looked, 
as well as his dim sight would admit, upon the counte¬ 
nance of Miriam. She shrank a little under his close scru¬ 
tiny. 

“My daughter,” he said, at length removing his eyes, 
“dost thou wear a veil?” 

“No, father.” 

“Then it is the film of my own vision that prevents my 
discovery of what thy face is like. I have been wont to 
read the disposition of people by their countenances; but 
old age claims the weak eyes befitting it, and I can no 
longer read in that wise. But I take it thou art kind. 
Shouldst thou happen upon any of the name of Vavaseur, 
send information to the parish of St. Ignatius in San Fran¬ 
cisco, and it will reach me. I am journeying thither 
this night.” 

Miriam murmured a low response to his words, and re¬ 
ceiving the priest’s benediction, rode away. 

Once or twice, while still within sight of the old mission, 
she looked back over her shoulder with a wild expression 
in her eyes, and her face was ghastly as from some strong 
emotion. 

“On, on, Faust!” she criejl. “On, on, let us get away 
from this desolate road!” and backward she glanced again, 


132 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


that look of abject terror in her eyes. When she reached 
Heartsease she found Violet seated on the steps of the 
veranda, her face buried in her handkerchief and her whole 
form shaken by violent sobs. Davanant and Gladys 
were standing over her striving to soothe her with low- 
spoken words. The farmer looked up as Miriam ap¬ 
proached. 

“Mademoiselle Vavaseur has lost a much valued cruci¬ 
fix,” he said. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


133 


CHAPTER XV. 

In her private room Miss Vernoys reposed upon a 
luxurious divan, her head enthroned upon a pillow of an¬ 
tique tapestry, which brought all her dead-gold hair into 
rich relief, and a negligee robe of pale-blue enveloping her, 
most becomingly. 

Her apartment was one of the prettiest that Heartsease 
boasted, being draped in the softest shades of lavender and 
gold, and frescoed aloft with floating leaves, which flung 
garlands of pansies at each other. 

Upon a small malachite stand there rested a portrait 
of Homer Davanant and a bowl filled with heartsease, 
which flowers Miriam faithfully renewed each morning, 
always zealously careful that each blossom should be with¬ 
out a flaw and distinct as to color, for of its characteristic 
flora the gardens of Heartsease boasted a variety which 
the most assiduous collector could not have rivaled. The 
likeness of Davanant seemed to be the chief object of 
Miriam’s glance as she reclined upon the divan the after- 


134 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


noon following their expedition to Carmelo, and that her 
thoughts were not of the most complacent nature was 
evinced by a deep furrow between her brows and a hard 
expression of her mouth. 

She was thinking: 

“What evil influence led me in contact with that old 
priest yesterday? Why should I, of all persons, have been 
elected to hear the story of Violet Vavaseur’s fortune? 
And what power compelled me to withhold my knowl¬ 
edge of her from that holy man? Now, Gladys says that 
Mademoiselle is grieving over the loss of her crucifix, 
so that she cannot eat nor sleep, and by a few words I 
could have it restored to her, together with her inherit¬ 
ance. Why don’t I confess what I know? Ah! that 
would be to frustrate my own plans. Should Violet come 
in possession of her money she would in all probability 
leave Heartsease at once to assume the position in the 
world that it would warrant, thus putting herself entirely 
beyond my power. I have resolved to condemn her in 
Davanant’s infatuated eyes at no matter what cost, and I 
require her near me in order to operate successfully 
against her. Audrey Westphal will be a tractable agent 
toward my purpose, as he is in love with mademoiselle. 
I have not yet resolved in what manner I shall appropriate 
his services, but-” 

“Aunt Miriam? Aunt Miriam?” cried Natalie, breath¬ 
lessly entering the room at this point of her reverie. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


135 


“Look!” said the child, holding up one dimpled little 
hand, upon the forefinger of which flashed a brand-new 
ring. “Nunc Homer had it sent from the city for my birth¬ 
day present.” 

“How sweet,” said her aunt, examining the dainty jewel. 
“You have two pretty rings now, haven’t you, pet?” she 
asked. “Where is the ruby one that your mamma gave 
you at Christmas?” 

“Mademoiselle keeps that in her room, put away in a 
casket, for me, and, oh, Aunt Miriam, she has got lovely 
pearls that she keeps in the same casket—all white and 
shining, and a whole big string of them! The box is on 
mademoiselle’s dressing table.” 

“Yes, ye—es?” said Miriam, her eyes half shutting, as 
was their peculiarity wfien she was moved to any undue 
emotion. 

“Have the gentlemen arrived whom your uncle ex¬ 
pected, from Del Monte?” she asked, presently. 

“Yes; they have come,” answered the child. 

“Who is here; do you know, Natalie?” 

“Dr. Eversley, Mr. Douglas and—oh, another; I forget 
his name, aunty.” 

“It is Mr. Audrey Westphal, is it not, sweetheart?” And 
Miriam twisted one of Natalie’s long, golden curls as she 
asked this. 

“No; it is not!” said her niece, with an emphasis that 


136 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


was both ludicrous and puzzling to the other. “Mr. 
Audrey Westphal is not here, and I am glad my Nunc 
Homer did not ask him.” 

“Why, child, what makes you say that?” questioned 
her aunt, with some asperity. 

“Because I do not like him,” was the laconic and un¬ 
satisfactory response. And with a little moue Natalie ran 
from the room. 

Despite Miss Vernoys’ annoyance at the thought that 
the young cadet was, apparently, not to comprise one 
of Davanant’s guests for the trout-fishing, she made an 
elaborate toilet and went down shortly after the last dinner 
bell had sounded. 

At table her mood was that of the gayest. 

Her ceaseless flow of wit prompted Davanant to throw 
occasional surprised glances toward her. 

Was this brilliant, laughing woman the same who for 
the past month had been wont to sit at dinner mute¬ 
lipped and sullen-browed? He asked himself the ques¬ 
tion, secretly wondering what had brought about the 
sudden transformation which, he acknowledged, was 
an agreeable one. It made him feel less constrained to¬ 
ward Miriam than he had felt at any time during h\s so¬ 
journ at Heartsease—a constraint that on his part had 
been actuated by the austere formality and reticence on 
hers. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 137 

On the ground of her cordiality he ventured within 
the old familiar range that evening, the result being that, 
for some inexplicable reason, he felt himself stung. 

Was her demeanor toward him that of triumph or defi¬ 
ance? He could not possibly determine. 

They were alone together in the drawing-room. She 
was at the piano playing an arrangement by Chopin, a 
nocturne which was an especial favorite with her. She 
went through all the measures of the piece with the skill 
and feeling of execution that was her chief accomplish¬ 
ment, and when she had sounded the last soft, prolonged 
chord she turned to Davanant, who stood at one end of the 
instrument in an attitude of profound abstraction, and 
their eyes met. His held a mysterious softness of expres¬ 
sion. Hers seemed to be challenging him to speak. Pres¬ 
ently he did so. 

“Miriam,” he said, “you have a fashion of playing into 
one’s souk Your music has made me think how little 
there is in life that is really sublime; then, too, it is reminis¬ 
cent. You played the same thing last Christmas-eve 
night” 

“Yes,” said Miriam, with a faint smile, and placing her 
elbows backward on the verge of the key-board, she looked 
away from him toward some tapestry hangings, with 
eyes partially shut, and went on: “I remember that I 
played it that night. I remember just what you were 


188 


- AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


doing at the time, Homer. You were seated at the escri¬ 
toire writing a note to Mademoiselle Vavaseur, to say 
that you had reserved her mother’s picture and some books 
from the auction sale.” She paused, letting her glance 
drift back to his countenance. 

She saw that his eyes still wore that look of mystic soft¬ 
ness and that deep down in them there was something very 
like tears. 

“Am I not right?” she asked calmly. 

“Yes,” he answered. 

“And after you had got it written,” she went on, in 
the same implacable tone, “we spoke of the bracelet you 
had given me that day. You said it should be a talisman 
of lasting friendship between us.” 

“That is right; I said so,” remarked Davanant, un¬ 
conscious of what she was insidiously leading up to. 

There was a moment’s silence. Then Miriam spoke 
again. 

“And on that very night my bracelet was stolen.” 

Davanant started. She expected him to start, and did 
not move a muscle as she continued: 

“Yes; I left it lying upon my dressing-table, and, my 
door having carelessly been left unlocked, the thing was 
easy enough. I have regretted thejoss of it greatly. It 
was a unique and very handsome ornament, and I prized 
it doubly much, as you gave it to me, Homer.” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


139 


She knew that his eyes were fastened upon her and felt 
herself growing weak under their strong, 'hypnotic power. 
She strove with all her strength against the magnetism of 
that gaze, and feeling that she was going to fail—that her 
eyes were being forced to look so that he could read all 
their latent truth, she turned suddenly to the piano and 
struck into a brilliant valse. 

Davanant remained standing there, his glance riveted * 
upon her, through the first two bars; then he wheeled 
abruptly round and quitted the drawing-room, in a mood 
half bewildered, half angry. 

“I do not believe her story about the bracelet,” he 
stoutly declared to himself as he joined his guests, who 
were smoking on the moon-lit veranda. 

Upon his appearance they plunged into reminiscences 
of adventure wherein Davanant himself had played prom¬ 
inent roles, but they could not draw him out of his apa¬ 
thetic mood; so finally they bade him good-night and left 
him alone with the moon-wraiths, in whose mystic com¬ 
panionship he seemed to find more of absorbing interest 
than he did in their society. 


140 


AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


/ 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Grief, engendered by the loss of her amulet, weighed so 
heavily upon Violet’s mind that sleep was rendered im¬ 
possible to her. 

On the second morning following the lamented occur¬ 
rence she was astir at the first signal of dawn, resolved to 
walk out in the fresh air with the hope of gaining relief 
from the nervous headache consequent upon long hours 
of unrest. Despite her trouble she was deeply impressed 
with the beauty of the midsummer morning. Along the 
eastern sky a lustrous commingling of amber and gold her¬ 
alded the rising of the sun; over the furthest escarpments 
a violet haze was suspended, like the meshes of a fairy’s 
veil, while an emerald brilliance shone on the near mesa, 
in fluctuating lights and shadows, and every separate tree 
and shrub in the canyon adopted new loveliness as the 
sun crossed the horizon, swathing all in a golden halo. 

Along her path rose gray rock pyramids, engirdled by 
soft fastnesses of fern, and the tuft over which she stepped 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


141 


was a carpet of multicolored bloom, from which uprose 
a compound of sweetness that mingled aloft with the re¬ 
veille of wild birds, dotting the blue sky here and there as 
they soared in joyous liberty of life. 

As she slowly proceeded down the undulating glade 
there came to her ear the faint vibration of a bell. 

“It is the angelus of Carmelo,” observed Violet, re¬ 
membering that Mr. Davanant had said it would be rung 
at sunrise on that particular morning, in commemoration 
of the death of some ancient monk. 

The calm which succeeded the dolorous sound was 
deep and impressive, and Violet stood rapt in a sort of 
trance—a sense that made her feel as though some divine 
power were drawing her upward, away from all earthly 
things. 

Her lips quivered, her eyes raised themselves toward 
the blue and lustrous heavens, slowly filling with tears. 

Clasping her hands before her, she murmured in a voice 
that was scarcely louder than the stirring zephyrs: 

“Sainted mamma, you are looking down upon me 
now. My soul feels the reaching tenderness of your eyes. 
They see my grief. Your voice speaks to me compassion¬ 
ately. It seems to say, ‘Be comforted. The amulet will 
be restored to thee after a season/ ” 

For a space she stood in silent communion with the 
gentle Juana’s spirit, and when she resumed her way 


142 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

down the canyon a peacefulness rested on her counte¬ 
nance such as it had not known for many hours. In¬ 
deed, she was almost happy again, in the faith that her 
guardian angel would guide at last to a recovery of the 
lost treasure. 

Through the calmness was borne to her the liquid mur¬ 
mur of the stream that coursed down the oak-clad hill¬ 
side; the lark’s wing glistened like burnished gold in the 
sunlight; the wild grape-vine twisted its grotesque limbs 
about the trunk of a live-oak, beneath whose spreading 
shade she passed, and its foliage was darkened by clusters 
of rich and luscious fruit, which tempted her to pause and 
eat. Here, dexterously swung from one tall purple lark¬ 
spur to another, was the filmy web of some night-toiling 
insect, the meshes of which were strung with dew drops, 
bright as diamonds. This she named as she passed “the 
hammock of the fairies.” Here was a tiny inundated mir¬ 
ror lake of mountain water, as clear as crystal, all flanked 
round by spicy cresses. She knelt and drank from the re¬ 
freshing fount. 

There appeared no trifling detail of nature’s handicraft 
but with which her soul was ready to commune. It seem¬ 
ed as though she had been suddenly borne from the long, 
troublous night into some enchanted sphere, where flow¬ 
ers, birds, sky, space, silence all combined to form a beauti¬ 
ful melody, or a poem, the title of which suddenly came 
to her like a revelation: “Love!” 


143 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

“Love, love, love!” The flowers breathed it; the birds 
sang it; the breeze whispered it; the air formed a blue 
script upon which the one word was written in mystic 
letters. And there stood Davanant, in the shadow of a 
large gray rock, regarding her with grave, glad, all-ab¬ 
sorbing eyes! 

There was a loud buzzing sensation in her ears, and he 
and the rock and its adjacent shrubs and flowers spun 
round her, as though they composed a little world, and she 
its axis. 

Then that world were called “Love,” for Davanant, its 
king, had spoken the word aloud. He had said so. 

Ere yet that mad revolution had ceased and she could 
compose herself sufficiently to speak, he went up to her 
and took her hand and led her to a seat on a projection 
of the rock. 

“Did you take me for a goblin?” he asked, attempting 
to stay her agitation with a jest; he retained her hand in a 
close, warm pressure and sank down on the grass beside 
her in a half kneeling attitude. “I fancy that I don’t look 
unlike one in this sugar-loaf hat. But I haven’t ‘piggish 
eyes,’ such as goblins are proverbially given, have I ?” 

“Oh, no, monsieur!” she smilingly answered him. 

“What has brought you out so early, Violet?” he asked 
calling her by her Christian name for the first time. 

“I have not slept,” she told him. “I sought the early 



144 


1 ■ - 




after the night has passed. 

morning air, hoping to find it a remedy for headache con¬ 
sequent upon my unrest 

“Nor have I slept/’ he said. “I started out at five with 
the intention of bagging some game for breakfast, but I 
have not shot once. I reached this rock—a favorite retreat 
with you, I believe—and here I have been sitting for two 
hours, thipking of—Violet Vavaseur.” 

The dullness of her eyes had gradually departed, but as 
he said this they were again crossed by their former look 
of incredulity. They met the passionate ardor of Dava- 
nant’s own, steadily, amazedly. 

“Have my thoughts drawn you hither, mademoiselle? 
I am termed something of an hypnotist, you know?” he 
said. 

She made an attempt at response and failed. Then he 
flung his arms about her and drew her toward him, speak¬ 
ing to her in that grand mastery of words so few can boast. 
But of all his eloquence Violet was only conscious of the 
words: 

“I love you! In living on' I shall need you as the earth 
needs the radiance of the sun by day and that of the stars 
by night. Look up, and kiss me, Violet! Kiss me; then 
I shall know the answer of your heart.” 

And in the shadow of the rock, amid the breath of flow¬ 
ers, and song of birds and whispering of low winds, her 
lips met the long warm pressure otf his own. 












































































145 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

After that when she was free from the enfolding of his 
arms, she reached down and broke off a frond of fern 
from the tuft at her feet. 

“This is real,” she said; “it is not a part of a dream 
that will pass presently! You, my benefactor, have chosen 
me from among the many fair women of your acquaint¬ 
ance, to love—me, a lowly violet!” 

“Yes, my sweet, pure-souled one,” he told her. “I al¬ 
most falter ihere at your feet with a sense of my unworthi¬ 
ness to possess so white a flower, but I love you better 
than all the world beside. I have asked you to be my 
wife.” 

Then, as he thwarted her happy tears with kisses, talk¬ 
ing in his low, mellifluous voice the language so sweetly 
strange to her experience, a serpent crept noiselessly 
from under the rock, almost at their very side, and glided 
unperceived into the flower fastness beyond them, its 
head erect, its forked fang extended! 








148 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Violet’s mind was dilated by the incident which had 
happened to her so unexpectedly. The future, which the 
day previous had appeared only a blank perspective 
whereupon her fancy had not essayed to define even the 
faintest outlines of something longed for without a pos¬ 
sibility of attaining, was now animated by beautiful pic¬ 
tures replete with the fairest prophecies. Alone in her 
room, she fell upon 'her knees and thanked God for Dava- 
nant’s love, praying to be made more worthy such a boon. 
She recalled each word he had spoken, each look he had 
given her that morning, and in these more tranquil mo¬ 
ments she was impressed with a fuller significance of 
them. She wondered how such beatitude could have 
fallen to her lot and how she could ever compensate a love 
so great as his. 

She was roused from her ecstatic reverie by the voice 
of Natalie, crying: 

“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle?” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


149 


“Oui, cher coeur,” answered Violet, promptly opening 
the door. 

“Why did you not come for our after-breakfast ram¬ 
ble, mademoiselle?” asked the child, flaunting in. “I have ' 
been in the garden a long time waiting for you. I got 
tired and chased the butterflies; that is how I come to 
tear my pinafore. See the lace!” 

“Oh!” ruefully exclaimed Violet. “But I will mend it.” 
So saying she slipped off the damaged garment, then seat¬ 
ed herself with it at the window, and as her needle glided 
in and out the rent lace Natalie leaned by the open case¬ 
ment and chatted to her glibly. 

“I caught one big yellow butterfly, mademoiselle—yel¬ 
low with green spots on its wings, and some of the green 
spots came off on my fingers; then it got away, but could 
not fly, so Nunc Homer picked it up and set it on Aunt 
Miriam’s hair; then she told him it would look better on 
your black hair, mademoiselle, but that you might like 
a butterfly made of real emeralds, as you were very fond 
of that jewel. Are you?” 

“Why—no, not at all. I like almost any other stone bet¬ 
ter,” answered Violet, puzzled as to how Miss Vernoys 
could have formed such a mistaken idea regarding her 
taste in that respect. 

“I see Nunc Homer, Dr. Eversley, Mr. Douglas and 
Mr. Woodward, all on horseback, riding down the avenue. 


150 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Look, mademoiselle!” cried Natalie, presently: 

Violet lifted her eyes and gazed from the window toward 
the riders. 

“They are going fishing at Carmel river,” she remarked 
softly. “I heard them arranging the excursion at break¬ 
fast.” 

“Oh, would not Mr. Audrey Westphal love to go, too?” 
exclaimed her little companion. “But he is not coming 
at all for the fishing. I heard Nunc Homer tell Aunt 
Miriam so. How long will they be gone, mademoiselle?” 

“All day, probably.” 

“Then mamma, Aunt Miriam, you and I can go on a 
picnic to the woods!” cried Natalie, clapping her hands 
in high glee. “Oh! do hurry with the mending, mademoi¬ 
selle, or leave it for Fiorina, and let us go at once and 
fix the luncheon!” 

“Your mamma and Miss Vernoys are expecting visitors 
from Morfterey this afternoon, dearest. They cannot go. 
But you and I shall. We will take a little basket of fruit 
and cakes, also some story books, and spend the day down 
by the old gray rock. Should you like that?” asked Violet. 

“Oh! ever and ever so much!” answered the child, 
priouetting gaily about the room until all her golden 
curls danced. 

Long before noon the two set out toward their favorite 
sylvan haunt. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


151 


The passing of a clay is sweet to contemplate, with such 
new and beautiful thoughts to fill up its length of hours as 
Violet’s were. 

She did not dream how briefly her joy was to endure. 
She little guessed that this was destined to be her. final 
visit to the “old gray rock,” now endearingly associated 
with the sweetest episode of her life. In its shadow she 
had heard Homer Davanant’s avowal of love. There they 
had pledged eternal troth to one another. 

Go, unsuspecting heart, and dream in its fond em¬ 
brasure. But beware of the serpent that lies coiled be¬ 
neath. Quickly succeeding the blissful afternoon will 
come thy season of night and bitterness! 

Miriam, from her upstairs window, had watched them 
go out through the gates, then turned to her embroidery 
frame, but not to work. 

Long she sat, absently toying with a remnant of silver 
bullion thread, her eyes half shut and fixed before her. 
Once there was a slight infirmity of the lines about her 
mouth, as though they were drawn by some strong in¬ 
ward force. But the tremor ceased almost instantly; her 
lips compressed themselves rigidly together and her head 
moved gradually backward, assuming a poise not unlike 
that of a reptile ready to strike at its victim. Presently 
she spoke, half audibly: 

“This is my opportunity. She will probably be absent 


152 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


from home all afternoon and I will have ample time to 
act before our visitors arrive. To-night, in the eyes of the 
world, the woman I righteously despise shall be exposed 
as a thief!” 

She pushed back her embroidery frame, rose and hur¬ 
riedly left the room. 

The corridor leading to Mademoiselle Vavaseur’s apart¬ 
ment was in semi-darkness and quite deserted. Along 
this she insidiously moved, and gained without sound 
Violet’s door, which was slightly ajar. 

Miriam passed in and locked herself against any pos¬ 
sible intrusion. 

“Now,” she whispered, “for the casket of pearls. Na¬ 
talie said that mademoiselle kept it on her dressing-table.” 

She crossed the room toward that article of furniture. 

“This—it must be this!” 

Lifting the coveted box she closely examined it. It was 
as she feared. It shut with a secret spring. 

This fact, however, in no wise disturbed Mirian. She 
had the entire afternoon before her in which to solve the 
mysterious combination of the lock. 

The expected guests arrived duly from Monterey, and 
these, together with Davanant’s guests and the several 
permanent members of the household, made a consider¬ 
able party at Heartsease that evening. 

After dinner the ladies gravitated to the parlors, the 


AFTEK THE' MIGHT HAS PASSED. 


153 


gentlemen joining them after they had finished their 
cigars, and thus completing the little groups of which 
Davanant and Mademoiselle Vavaseur alone seemed to 
comprise no part. The former moved restlessly here and 
there, his glance often directed to the remote corner 
where Violet sat, looking over a scenic folio. Moved at 
last by the power of his eyes, she looked up. 

He was standing at the little table beside her. 

Come into the garden, Violet,” he softly said, and 
she rose with glad concession. 

They left the rooms together, she a little tremulous, 
with suppressed felicitous emotions, he totally indifferent 
as to the many curious eyes that followed them. 

For half an hour they strayed in the flower-sweet, moon- 
swathed stillness of the garden, and during that brief 
space of time Davanant told his newly betrothed some¬ 
thing of the plans that he had formed for the future. 

He desired to announce their engagement to his sister- 
in-law the following day. 

“There is no reason,” he said, “why an indefinite time 
should elapse before our marriage, so let it be soon, Violet 
—say the first of September? Then wefll go quietly 
abroad.” 

All too soon they were compelled to leave the fragrant 
radiance of the garden and return to the heat and glare 
of the parlors. 


154 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


As they entered Miriam rose from a divan in the furthest 
part of the rooms and approached them. 

Her cheeks had an unnatural flush. Her eyes were in¬ 
stinct with an ominous glitter. Her voice, however, 
sounded with easy complacency as she spoke to Violet: 

“Miss Lovelace is going to sing the jewel song, from 
‘Faust/ mademoiselle. She will act out the scene, and a 
strand of pearls will be required. Natalie has gone to 
your room to bring yours,” she said. 

Violet stood briefly without making a reply. There 
was in her manner a visible discomfiture which might 
have been mistaken for anger. 

That Miss Vernoys should have taken the unauthorized 
privilege of sending to her private apartment for her jew¬ 
els surprised her not a little. That the sacred legacy be¬ 
stowed upon her by her dying mother’s hand should so 
soon be applied toward theatrical purposes did not seem 
to her exactly in keeping with chastity. 

Nevertheless, she could not brook the thought of being 
considered churlish or unaccommodating, so presently 
she said: 

“You are welcome to use the pearls. I will go and see 
that Natalie succeeds in getting the box. Oh, here she 
comes!” 

She went forward herself and took the metallic case 
from the child's arms. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


155 


“Aunt Miriam told me to bring it, mademoiselle. She 
said you would not be angry with me. You are not angry, 
are you?” anxiously whispered Natalie as she relinquished 
her burden. 

“Non, chere enfant,” she was gently reassured. 

Then, as her nurse was waiting to take her upstairs to 
bed, she immediately vanished. 

Placing the casket upon a small stand near the center 
of the room, Violet at once proceeded to open it. The 
spring did not work with its customary ease, and this 
fact caused Mademoiselle Vavaseur some slight wonder. 
But at last the lid flew open with a slight clicking sound, 
and all gathered near to view her treasure. 

Dr. Eversley was considered a connoisseur on gems. 
He took the glistening pearls delicately between his 
fingers. 

“I have never seen more magnificent jewels than these.” 
he remarked in some astonishment. “They are of the rarest 
and costliest order of pearls—pure Ceylon gems. Made¬ 
moiselle Vavaseur,” he added, turning to the young girl, 
“the fair Marguerite herself would have envied you 
these.” 

Violet smiled proudly. 

“The necklace,” she said, “bears a pedigree. It origin¬ 
ally belonged to my great-great-grandmother. Each pearl 
represents a year of her life, from infancy to womanhood, 


156 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


and to the diamond clasp each of the members of her fam¬ 
ily contributed a single stone, as was the custom in 
France at that time. The necklace descended to my mother 
upon her wedding day, and at her death it became my 
own legacy.” 

“Have you ever worn the pearls, Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur?” questioned Miss Lovelace, with untoward rever¬ 
ence. 

Glancing downward at .her deep-mourning attire, Violet 
slowly shook her head. 

“Like her mother, she will wear them upon her bridal 
day,” remarked a grave voice, which, with a quick throe 
of her heart, Violet recognized as Davanant’s. 

There followed a brief silence; then a sudden surprised 
cry was heard. 

“Why, Mademoiselle Vavaseur! how came this in your 
jewel box?” 

All eyes now directed themselves toward Miriam. 

She was holding above her head, so that every one 
present could see, an emerald bracelet which she had 
taken from the metallic casket. 

Her gaze was fixed with burning steadfastness upon 
Violet. 

“I say, how came my bracelet to be locked up along 
with your pearls, mademoiselle?” she asked in a voice 
that struck a chill to Violet’s heart. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


157 


With an expression of dull bewilderment her eyes met 
the fiercely brilliant, menacing ones of her assailant. 

“Surely, Miss Vernoys, surely,” she faltered at last, “you 
did not find that there?” motioning toward the open cas¬ 
ket. 

“Most certainly I found it there,” replied Miriam, with 
unswerving austerity, her lips curling in contempt of her 
victim's words. “My emerald bracelet has been missing 
since Christmas, and I find it thus, an item of your secret 
treasury, hidden beneath a lot of cotton!” 

All eyes were now riveted upon the countenance of the 
young Frenchwoman. All there held their breath, ex¬ 
pecting to hear her utter some expression of self-defense. 
But Violet's lips were as white and dumb as though chis¬ 
eled in marble. She stood, her beautiful dark eyes dulled 
by the intensity of agony engendered by this terrible 
effrontery. 

“Have you, then, nothing to say, Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur?” again spoke Miriam, implacably, and with ter¬ 
rible condemnation in her accenff 

Violet took a faltering step toward her. 

“Oh, Miss Vernoys v surely you are mis—surely 

you-” Her voice failed utterly. Covering her face 

with both hands, she swayed back and forth as though 
about to fall. 

But her accuser was merciless. Miriam heeded not her 


misery. 



158 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Turning her eyes upon the little assemblage, she slowly 
surveyed it, striving to discern how each individual re¬ 
garded the impromptu dramatic scene, and their expres¬ 
sion was one of satisfaction, the intensity of which in¬ 
creased until suddenly her glance encountered Dava- 
nant’s. Then a visible changed crossed her countenance. 
The fierce flush of her cheek died out quickly, leaving 
a sickly pallor that extended over her lips. By a super¬ 
human effort she managed-to avert her eyes from his 
penetrating, hypnotic ones. 

Presently she heard Violet’s prayerful whisper: 

“I am innocent! You know it is so. For the love of 
God, exonerate me before these people!” 

Her supplication, however, met with fine scorn. With¬ 
out a word Miriam forced the casket of pearls into her 
victim’s hands, making a commanding gesture, toward 
the door. Then, like all others present, she watched Violet 
turn and stagger from the room, faint, blind, all but fall¬ 
ing under her burden of cruel, guiltless shame. 

Many suppressed exclamations followed upon her dis¬ 
appearance. 

“A thief! and she appears so refined and gentle?” “A 
thief, and wholly without art in her vice!” “A common 
pilferer, and the protegee of Homer Davanant! How 
mortifying to him!” 

Miriam heard all this with exultant heart. Davanant 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


159 


heard nothing. He stood like one in a trance, gazing 
toward the door through which Violet had gone. 

When some one touched him on the arm, uttering a 
timid word of condolence, he offered no response what¬ 
ever. 

But he took his eyes off the door and fixed them in the 
direction $of Miriam. 

She was moving in the crowd, vouchsafing a low- 
spoken remark to this and that one, and offering her em¬ 
erald bracelet for inspection. She turned, with a sort of 
shuddering start, at the sound of Davanant’s voice. He 
spoke, directly in her ear: 

“Miriam!” he said. “Let me have the bracelet, Miriam.” 

She yielded it to him without a word and he turned and 
left the room with it, not to return throughout the re¬ 
mainder of the evening. His summary disappearance 
caused some remarks on the part of the guests, but Mir¬ 
iam explained this to their satisfaction. 

“Mr. Davanant,” she said, “has gone to nurse his contre¬ 
temps in seclusion. The exposure of the true character of 
Mademoiselle Vavaseur, in whom he had previously re¬ 
posed the utmost confidence, has of course occasioned 
him immeasurable sorrow and disappointment.” 

And everyone readily accorded. 

“Certainly. Poor Davanant! How deplorable that his 
charity should have been so misdirected!” 


160 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XVIII. I 

Gaining her room, Violet sank .to the floor, her every 
faculty dazed by the weight of suffering that had fallen 
upon her so suddenly and unawares. 

For a long time she remained crouched there, her eyes 
fixed before her in a vacant stare, her palms pressed hard 
against her throbbing temples and occasional dry sobs 
escaping her. 

The harvest moon, riding in midheaven, shed a pale il¬ 
lumination in her room, bringing into relief the white- 
draped bed, the chiffonier, whose mirror reflected, as if in 
mockery, that silent croudiing figure and the casket of 
pearls, which had fallen open, spilling its contents upon 
the floor beside Violet. 

The white moonbeams glanced athwart the gems, caus¬ 
ing them to scintillate with all their native loveliness. It 
may have been the glittering necklace that at last roused 
the girl from her dull lethargy, for, as her eyes fell from 
vacancy upon this she made a kind of shivering movement 
and uttered a low, inarticulate cry. 


AFTER TIIE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


161 


Then she slowly rose to her feet, and, staggering to the 
window, looked from its open casement upon the night’s 
serenity, as if hoping to discover in that fair, lustrous 
space some panacea for her bruised and aching heart. 

Far out she gazed to where the furthest mountains 
showed their defines in dim tranquillity against the sky, 
and that long-reaching vision seemed to draw out some 
of her dull, deep, inward anguish; but swift as a flash she 
counter-scanned the space, coming back to the shadowy 
precincts below her window, where but a single hour pre¬ 
vious she had stood amid the clustering flowers, with— 
her lover. She felt her pulse of pain quicken tenfold at 
the memory of Davanant. 

Shutting her eyes, she pressed one hand closely over 
them and strove to think clearly. 

“Has it been but a dream, after all? Did my benefactor 
confess his love for me and ask me to become his wife, 
this morning, down by the gray rock? Did he hold me 
to his heart as we stood together in the garden there, to¬ 
night? Did he say that we would be married the coming 
September? Then, the ensuing scene in the drawing¬ 
room, when Miriam, before the crowd, he paramount of 
all, accused me of a terrible crime—was that real? 

“Oh, mon Dieu!” she moaned aloud when she had con¬ 
vinced herself that her recent brief happiness had been 
reality and that it had been abruptly and forever crushed 


162 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


out by Miriam’s iniquitous action, “let my sainted mother 
come to me now!” 

After that despairing outcry she sank upon her knees 
by the window and attempted to make a solution of Miss 
Vernoys’ treachery toward her. But think as she would 
she was unable to conceive of any motive that might have 
actuated the deed by which she had been so surely con¬ 
demned. One conviction she had, however—the ruse to 
implicate her had been deliberately designed on account 
of Miriam’s disapprobation of her, a truth which she had 
long recognized, but which had never caused her any 
serious reflection, because she had not consciously en¬ 
gendered that dislike by any word or action on her own 
part. 

“It is Miss Vernoys’ pleasure not to like me and I am 
satisfied without 'her friendship,” ihad been {the girl’s 
simple argument. 

“But now she has condemned me in the eyes of those 
whose esteem and confidence I have previously enjoyed. 
Oh, Homer! my friend, my benefactor, my love! You 
permitted me to go from you, believing in my shame! 
With such evidence as that sinful woman has created 
against me how can I exonerate myself in your eyes? I 
am utterly defenseless! Oh!” she went on debating with 
herself, hopelessly, “nothing, nothing can ever eradicate 
the brand of her iron; it has seared me indelibly! ‘A 


163 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

thief!’ For the love of God, to go forth into the world so 
execrated and yet to be perfectly guiltless? To see the 
gates of happiness closed against me forever, and to stand 
like a dumb brute, helpless to defend myself? To be 
forced to sacrifice honor, lover, home, friends—all, be¬ 
cause of the base calumny of one woman? In the wide, 
wide world never to find a place where my 'heart can be at 
peace again? Oh, infinite night! oh, bitterness and de¬ 
spair!” 

Her arms fell over her knees and her head drooped 
in an attitude of abject desolation, but her eyes were 
quite dry; their hot vision seemed to penetrate the dark 
destiny awaiting her, and she felt herself being urged 
headlong toward the abysmal future, like a condemned 
felon is urged to his dungeon cell; yet she could not cry. 

It was the clock striking twelve in the hall below that 
at last roused her from her gruesome apathy. 

Only a few hours to precede the dawn, at the first sign 
of which she would go out into the world, homeless and 
proscribed. The thought of flight had occurred to Violet 
as the one sure means of escaping the humiliations which 
she felt would inevitably follow upon the present condi¬ 
tion of her life. 

Death would have been_ preferable to her beside the 
contemptuous eyes of her erstwhile lover and those of 
Mrs. Davanant, Then, too, the proud blood in her veins, 


164 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


which now ran feverish, poisoned by the thrust of Miriam’s 
fang, warmed her against future contact with her enemy. 

She wrote a note to Davanant, saying: 

I cannot hope for your continued confidence after the convict¬ 
ing evidence that has been established against my character; there¬ 
fore I have resolved to adopt the only alternative that will relieve 
you of further responsibility on my account. I will leave Hearts¬ 
ease at once. I shall attempt no expression of gratitude for your 
beneficence toward me; such, I consider, would only make my 
hypocrisy appear still more prodigious in your eyes. 

Farewell! and though I remain in your memory now as a crea¬ 
ture ignominious and wholly unworthy a kindly thought or wish, 
the time may come when you will understand me—revealed under 
the “search-light of Truth,” you may see me as I am. An age 
ago the moment now appears when you called me your “sweet, 
pure-souled one,” and yet that happened only this morning— 
yesterday morning, rather; for I have passed beyond the golden 
space which encompassed my brief joy into a midnight, the 
bitterness and darkness of which threatens to brood over me 
interminably. Farewell! V. V. 

The penning of this missive was an ordeal severely 
trying to Violet, but, though her hand trembled so that 
some words were rendered almost illegible, the flood¬ 
gates of her grief remained sealed. Two or three times 
as s'he wrote her form was convulsed and audible moans 
escaped her, yet even to the closing word, which wrung 
her inmost soul, her eyes were hot and dry. 

It was four o’clock, and she had almost completed her 
simple arrangements for departure, when there came a 
hurried rap at her door. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


165 


She paused, startled, in the act of strapping a small 
portmanteau. 

Who could be seeking her at so untimely an hour? Was 
it Miriam, come to say she repented of her perfidy? Was 
it Homer, come to assure her that he did not believe in her 
guilt? Was it Gladys, come to counsel with her on ac¬ 
count of her supposed sin? The first thought brought re¬ 
newed hope to her heart, at the second that organ gave a 
joyous bound, at the third it contracted again, resum¬ 
ing its weight of despair. 

Again that impatient appeal, whereupon Violet ap¬ 
proached the door. Opening it, she encountered Na¬ 
talie’s nurse, who wore a countenance of grave anxiety. 

“Mademoiselle, if you please, it is of the infant I have 
come to speak with you. She has scarcely slept all night, 
and her face is burning as with fever. She calls for you 
constantly. Will you come?” 

“Certainly.” 

Violet followed anxiously to the nursery, and bending 
over Natalie’s crib, noticed the hectic flush on the child’s 
cheek and the slight tremor that at intervals passed 
over her frame. 

Suddenly as she leaned there, listening with some 
anxiety to her irregular breathing, Natalie started from 
sleep into a sitting posture. 

“Papa! mademoiselle!” she cried. 


166 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Then, as her eyes became accustomed to the light and 
she recognized the face of Violet, she fell back upon her 
pillow, saying plaintively: 

“I thought my papa was here; I thought he lifted me 
up high and then I thought I fell. But papa is in heaven, 
and I—I didn’t fall; I just was dreaming, wasn’t I, made¬ 
moiselle?” 

“Yes, dear heart, you were only dreaming,” and Violet 
held the child to her breast, kissing her with tender re¬ 
assurance. 

“Go to sleep in my arms now, dearest,” she said, “and 
dream of your big dolly, and of the beautiful birds and 
flowers—down by the big gray rock.” 

“And of you—I will dream of you, mademoiselle, for I 
love you better than all.” 

“Thank you, cher coeur! Try always to love me, won’t 
you?” 

“Yes, always—always—al-” 

Natalie again slept. 

After pressing a long, prayerful kiss upon the sheen 
of golden curls, Violet, warned by a white streak at the 
lattice, rose to leave the room. 

As she reached the door Florine saw her pause and 
cast a strange look back toward the trundle-bed. 

“What makes you so white, mademoiselle?” asked the 
nurse. “Do you anticipate for the child serious illness?” 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


167 


“Non!” exclaimed Violet quickly; “not that, Florine, 
Heaven forefend! Children are subject to fevers, and I 
dare say Natalie will be well in a few hours. But,” she 
added, her voice tremulous from suppressed emotion, 
“watch her faithfully, Florine, and be gentle with her— 
always be gentle. And when she wakens in the morning 
tell her that I came and kissed her, will you?” 

“Oui, chere mademoiselle; it will please l’enfant to 
know, I understand.” 


168 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A light burned dimly in the “Pansy room,” revealing 
Miriam standing by the hearth, her eyes fixed in a dilated 
stare upon the dying embers and betraying nothing of 
the triumph that one would have expected to see in them 
after her achieved victory over Violet Vavaseur. 

During the evening, following the enacting of the 
“jewel scene,” there had suddenly come upon her a sense 
of extreme depression, and though she struggled against 
this, endeavoring to convince herself that the trick of cun¬ 
ning and dissimulation had been urged upon her by cir¬ 
cumstances, certain “compunctious visitings” rendered it 
impossible for her to continue smiling in the center of a 
gay crowd, more than one member of which noticed the 
distracted mood into which her whole being seemed 
merged. 

How glad was Miriam to escape at last to the privacy of 
her own room. And yet the very moment she was alone 
she s'hrank trembling from her accusing conscience, wish¬ 
ing she could avoid the inevitable lapse of hours before 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


dawn—hours through which she would be doomed to in¬ 
somnia, solitude, inaction and, worst of all, thought 

With a new day, she reflected, there would be a dissolu¬ 
tion of the grim spectre, Remorse, and she would forget 
that she had ever experienced its chilling presence or 
heard the uncanny sound of its voice. 

The plot to implicate Violet had, she felt, been so in¬ 
geniously devised that no doubt could exist in the minds 
of any as to her guilt. She had no fean but what she her¬ 
self could make an effectual escape from the involving 
intrigue. She did not as yet dream of the havoc the scath¬ 
ing weapon with which she had so ruthlessly cut down the 
happiness of other lives had insidiously wrought upon her 
own. 

“My web has been woven so dexterously about Violet 
that she is bound inexorably in its mesh,” thought Miriam, 
standing there by the pallid embers. “And I am sanguine 
that Gladys. will adopt speedy measures to purge her 
household of an influence that could not appear to her 
otherwise than contaminating; with an idolatrous love 
for her sole offspring she would never subject it to the 
jurisdiction of a—thief! certainly not. 

“Mademoiselle Vavaseur will be banished summarily 
from Heartsease, and that in awful humiliation and dis- 
much as though she had never formed a part of its affairs, 
grace. Afterward—well, afterward my life will go on 


170 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


The broken line between Homer Davanant and myself 
will doubtless be picked up eventually and mended. Then 
in time—in time-” 

A bust of Apollo sat on the manted shelf at her elbow. 
She reached out her hand and touched the alabaster im¬ 
age, and her face appeared transfigured by an exultant 
smile as she finished the sentence of her reverie, “in time, 
with myself exempt from the cause of his present pain, 
his eyes may seek me with the same look in them that he 
was wont to regard her with; not with the penetrating, 
'hypnotic stare, such as they met mine with to-night. I 
was afraid lest they should read my inmost souk If I 
can only teach myself to look at him calmly and without 
fear I am sure I shall yet win him—in time. What mo¬ 
tive could he have had for taking my bracelet? That 
thought perplexes me.” 

Meanwhile, as Miriam soliloquized beside her cheerless 
hearth, Davanant, in his room, thought only of Violet. 

He was fully persuaded that some surreptitious plot 
had been instituted against her. He had written a few 
words, which it was his intention to have conveyed to 
Mademoiselle Vavaseur early on the following day. 

Lean on the assurance of my love for comfort and support (he 
wrote). I repose unshaken confidence in you. In a few days I 
will assume a more substantial title of protection toward you, 
my poor, maligned white violet! Only have faith in 

HOMER BALFOUR DAVANANT. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


171 


After he had sealed and addressed this he sat long into 
the small hours of the morning, planning for their early 
marriage and subsequent travels, which he intended 
should be of long continuation. He would take his bride 
ail over the world, and especially to that portion toward 
which she was most ambitiously inclined—the peninsula 
of Yucatan, her mother’s nativity and the burial place of 
her ancestors. So entirely engrossed was Davanant with 
his meditations that he did not hear the slight rustling 
sound made by Violet as she partially slipped her note 
under the carpet just outside his threshold, where she 
thought his eye would be sure to rest as he crossed there 
a few hours later. But her lover was destined not to re¬ 
ceive this. 

Miriam, on the keen alert, had stealthily watched as 
mademoiselle left her note beside Davanant’s door, and 
as soon as the young girl had re-entered her own apart¬ 
ment those farewell words to him were intercepted. 

A late breakfast was being served, when Mrs. Davanant 
received a message that Natalie’s maid waited to speak 
with her in the hall. 

With keen anxiety Gladys hastened from the room. 
Having been to the nursery on her way down to breakfast 
she had found Natalie sleeping under the feverish symp¬ 
toms Which had attacked her during the night, and she 
feared the nurse brought ill tidings of her child. 


172 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


But Florine hastened to announce that her errand con¬ 
cerned Mademoiselle Vavaseur. Davanant had charged 
her with his note to Violet, having gone to deliver which 
she had found the young lady’s door unlocked and had 
entered after repeated knocking, to discover a lamp still 
burning on her dressing-table and the bed undisturbed. 
She had also, she said, upon further investigation, ob¬ 
served that mademoiselle’s hat and circular were missing 
from the closet. Could madame conceive what had hap¬ 
pened to the young girl? 

Gladys made no response, but went silently upstairs 
to Violet’s room and divined the sad truth. 

“Mademoiselle Vavaseur had fled!” 

As Davanant heard this announcement his brows knit 
themselves into a dark frown, and his eyes flashed angrily. 
It was plain to see by the convulsive manner in which 
his features worked that it was only by a strong mental 
effort he restrained himself from a fierce outbreak. 

Miriam’s, face, on the other hand, was a mirror of ex¬ 
ultation. She herself had watched Violet go out through 
the gray dawn and pass beyond the gates of Heartsease 
forever, as she thought. 

So much the better for me, so much the worse for 
her,” Miriam had said to herself. “Only criminals steal 
away in the dead still of night. Now all that I want is 
time in which to harvest the fruit of my ingenious plant¬ 
ing.” 

She did not dream that instead of the coveted “fruit” 
there would spring up thorns to crucify her. 



173 


- : • 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XX. 

Violet walked like one in a trance, pursuing the wind¬ 
ing mountain road, northward. 

Her face, with its expression of mute misery, seemed 
to have aged years in one night. She felt like some lost 
spirit, fleeing into labyrinths where the presence of God 
was unknown. 

The face of Nature was to her eyes robbed of its en¬ 
chantment. The peaceful, flower-strewn glades, the lust¬ 
rous sky, the joyous warbling of birds, all were sub¬ 
merged in the dark cloud that had fallen over her life— 
all were as though they had entirely ceased to be. 

The sun shone vertically above her when at last she 
found herself overtaken by a sense of fatigue, which 
prompted her to seek the shade of some manzanita trees, 
a little remote from the roadside, for an interval of rest. 

Close by the spot where she cast herself down a wood- 
dove, poised upon a low-swung limb, lamented in low, 
dolorous notes for her mate, straying or dead. 


174 : 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


As Violet listened to its weird complaint her nerves, 
long strained by mental suffering, fasting, sleeplessness 
and physical effort, relaxed th^ir tension and for some 
time she wept convulsively, her sobs creating a fit accom¬ 
paniment to the notes of the forsaken and sorrowing dove. 
Then, when the paroxysm had spent itself, oblivion came. 
With her head pillowed upon the flowery grass, she slept 
heavily. It was mid-afternoon when she was wakened 
by some mysterious sound. She started up tremblingly, 
her eyes instinct with alarm. But now nothing was heard 
save the rustling of grass and leaves as the wind fanned 
by, or the stir of latent woodland life. She rose, consider¬ 
ably refreshed, and started to resume her way along the 
dusty high road but scarcely had she advanced a rod 
when a cry indescribably wild and terrifying—the same 
sound that she had heard in her sleep—brought her to a 
sudden halt. 

“Ah oo oo ooah!” the noise, half shriek, half wail, 
was repeated again and again, until the mountain rever¬ 
berated in a wild chorus. 

Dieu! some mad person inhabits this wood!” gasped 
Violet aloud. “It must be so.” 

Her terrified eyes peered through the intricate vista 
at the right and left, but it was some time before they dis¬ 
cerned the movement of dark objects away through the 
forest, close to where a vast bed of eschscholtzias shone 
golden in the sunlight. 





AFTER: THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 176 

“Indians!” exclaimed mademoiselle; then, with her 
recent fear dispersed, she stood and watched the actions 
of these unhostile natives, who numbered three men and 
four squaws. 

They formed a circle and were moving with slow, fantas¬ 
tic motion about some mysterious central object. Upon 
advancing a little nearer, Violet discovered this to be the 
naked corpse of a papoose. It lay upon a sort of litter, 
covered with ferns, beneath which was arranged a mass 
of dry leaves and twigs, apparently ready to ignite. 

“Ah—oo—oo—ooah!” 

It was one of the squaws, who, with arms tossed wildly 
above her head, uttered this now familiar shriek. Her 
black hair streamed over her shoulders in long, coarse 
wisps, which in places were white with dust; her rude 
cotton dress was half torn from a bare and bleeding breast, 
which she frequently struck with her clenched hand. 

“The bereaved mother,” Violet mentally concluded, and 
involuntary tears filled her eyes as she witnessed the 
woman’s pitiable grief. 

Casting herself upon the grass, she continued from her 
covert to watch the weird funeral dance until it had 
ended. Then the pyre, above which the dead babe lay, 
was ignited, and wreaths of smoke quickly began to evolve 
from it, followed by tongues of red flame, which soon en¬ 
tirely swathed the corpse. All now had become intensely 


176 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


still. The stricken mother had thrown herself forward 
on her face at a little distance from the fire, and lay 
prostrate, quite motionless, her long hair streaming out 
so that, as the flames commenced to die out and the breeze 
played upon the remains of her incinerated babe, some 
ashes fell upon it and her garments. 

The other Indians stood around the smoldering pyre 
until nothing of its flame remained, when, by one impulse, 
each took up a handful of ashes and tossed them, ac¬ 
cording to their tradition, toward the “Happy Hunting 
Ground,” chanting, as the cinders vanished upward, in 
very low unison, an incantation which Violet heard but 
indistinctly, as she moved out toward the open road 
again. 

The odor of burnt flesh permeated the atmosphere to 
an almost overpowering degree; she breathed more freely, 
however, as she gained the highway, but the pallor did 
not leave her face. 

The uncanny ceremony of which she had been a silent 
spectator had brought on an increased depression of 
spirit; for some indefinite reason she took it as a precursor 
of sadder things yet to come into her life. 

She resumed her way toward the north, walking hur¬ 
riedly and not pausing again until almost sunset, when 
she arrived in sight of the old Spanish town, Monterey, 
whose semi-circling bay already reflected the opalesque 
dyes of the heavens. 


177 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

It made a beautiful picture, stretching low before her 
there, but, standing upon the adjacent hill-top, her vision 
was incomprehensive, and her attitude was that of a deso¬ 
lation profound, hopeless, dumb. 

A resting place for the night had been to her before a 
question of not even the vaguest speculation. Her only 
thought had been to go to San Francisco and seek tem¬ 
porary guardianship of the Sisters of Charity. But as 
she stood there on the high road, above Monterey, she sud¬ 
denly remembered that there would be no train until morn¬ 
ing and that she was entirely without means to provide 
herself with lodging and food for the night, much less 
railroad fare. 

In the little portmanteau she carried was her necklace of 
pearls. She might find some person who would advance 
her a few dollars on the gems until such a time as she 
could redeem them. But upon second thought she shrank 
from the idea of relinquishing her pearls, even for a slight 
period of time. She had promised her dying mother to 
cling to these always, even through dire adversity, and 
though ignorant of human fallacy, aside from that exam¬ 
ple so lately forced to her experience, she feared in¬ 
stinctively to trust her sacred valuables to any one. 

“What can I do? Where can I go?” 

These questions revolved in her clouded mind until 
the words lost all meaning. 


178 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


The bay’s luminous, prismatic expanse grew less and 
less distinct before her vision. Suddenly she felt herself 
seized by a faintness which prompted her to stretch out 
her hands as if seeking some object of support; but they 
only grasped the air. For an instant she swayed back 
and forth under the blinding spell, then complete dark¬ 
ness came, and insensibility to that violent fall forward 
upon the inhospitable stones. 

As she lay there motionless in the semi-gloaming, the 
blood slowly oozing from an abrasion above her left tem¬ 
ple, her pulse almost entirely still, a carriage came slowly 
up the inclined road. Its two oceupants, a middle-aged 
lady and a youth somewhat resembling her in feature, 
were engaged in cheerful converse, their well-bred voices 
rising just a trifle above the twittering of birds and other 
evening sounds. 

But as they drew near that form, lying prostrate and 
silent on the rocks, they ceased talking abruptly and 
brought their horses to a halt. 

“Great God! it is the young Frenchwoman—Mademoi¬ 
selle Vavaseur, of whom I have spoken to you, mother!” 
cried he who was none other than Audrey Westphal, cadet, 
and as he said this he sprang excitedly from the carriage. 

“She has fallen in a faint!” he exclaimed, after bending 
momentarily over Violet, “and her head is bleeding ter¬ 
ribly! Come quickly, mother! You have your vinaigrette; 
apply the restorative while I chafe her hands.” 


179 


■ ■ ■ i',- '• 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Mrs. Westphal hurried to the spot. She turned quite 
pale, as had her son, at the sight of blood. 

“Poor, dear child, she has cut her head upon the stones; 
how cruel!” she murmured, applying her cool linen hand¬ 
kerchief to the wound and gently holding it there to check 
the blood as with the other hand she applied some eau de 
cologne to the inanimate girl’s lips and nostrils! 

Soon Violet’s eyes opened, but without any intelligence 
in them. Quickly as life revived all the fevered blood in 
her body rushed to her head. As her eyes dwelt upon the 
gentle, refined face of Mrs. Westphal a smile crossed her 
lips and they articulated the one word, audibly: 

“Mamma!” 

“Oh, what shall we do, mother? She is very ill. Her 
mind is wandering. Let us get her in the carriage and 
hasten with her to Del Monte!” cried Audrey, almost fran¬ 
tic with alarm. 

“Do you not think, my son, it would be better for us to 
find some quiet hostelry in Monterey? The presence of a 
mysterious lady at our hotel might cause some unpleas¬ 
ant gossip,” quietly answered Mrs. Westphal. 

But her son persisted vigorously: 

“Mademoiselle Vavaseur,” he said, “has for some un¬ 
doubtedly good reason left the home of the Davanants. 
That she has been plunged into some deep trouble is 
plainly apparent. She is ill, unconscious, and requires 


180 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


our close protection and care. Let us get her home and 
call a doctor. Come, help me.” 

“I have only my pearls. Do not take my necklace from 
me, as you took my sacred amulet! Oh, please, please do 
not take from me the death-gift of my mamma!” cried 
Violet, clasping her portmanteau close to her. 

“Of course we will not take them, dear,” Mrs. Westphal 
gently reassured her. 

“You have hurt me very badly pinning all these jewels 
in my head. Will you please take them out again? I hate 
emeralds! They are made out of the poison of serpents 
and that butterfly on my forehead is stinging me. See, 
it has drawn the blood! Please, oh, please, unpin it, won’t 
you, and put it under the cotton with Miriam’s bracelet?” 

“Yes, yes, dear.” 

“Yes, dear mademoiselle.” 

“It is not far to the prison, is it?” Violet questioned, as 
the carriage started at a desperate gait down the hill to¬ 
ward the town. 

“No, only a litle way,” said Mrs. Westphal, tenderly. 

It being dark when they reached the hotel, they got 
the sick girl conveyed to an apartment without disturb¬ 
ance of any kind. Arid here Violet lay all that night and 
the following day in a raging fever, in the chaos of which 
she lived over again all the details of her present trouble. 
When she at length regained consciousness she insisted 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 181 

upon relating all that had happened to those who had 
so generously befriended her. But they spared her the 
pain such a narration would have caused her. 

“We have already been made aware of all that you have 
passed through, Mademoiselle Vavaseur,” Mrs. West- 
phal told her. “You revealed everything to us in the de¬ 
lirium of your fgyer. Rest assured of our entire faith in 
your innocence, my dear.” 

“I am positive,” said Violet, “that Miss Vernoys herself 
secreted her bracelet in my jewel case; but I cannot pos¬ 
sibly conceive why she should have desired to so malign 
me. Her plan to injure me was so skillfully carried out 
that it left me entirely without alternative, aside from 
that which I adopted. I could not have borne to look 
again into the face of thdse who formerly trusted and loved 
me, but who now believe me to be wicked and contemptu¬ 
ous; so I left Heartsease when none knew of my departure. 
When you found me lying there on the rocks in the high¬ 
road I was on my way to San Francisco, in which city I 
have friends among the Sisters of Charity. I shall go to 
them now. They will give me shelter until I can find a po¬ 
sition. I can teach children,” concluded mademoiselle, 
striving to force a smile of courage. 

There was a moment’s silence, and then Mrs. Westphal 
said : 

“In a few weeks, my daughter Vivian is going abroad, 



182 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


to be absent eight or ten months. I am somewhat of an 
invalid and shall need some one as companion during her 
absence. Should you care to stay with me, mademoiselle?” 

“Yes; do stay with mamma, Mademoiselle Vavaseur,” 
chimed in Vivian, delighted at the idea. 

“How providential that we found you!” softly ex¬ 
claimed Audrey, fixing happy, lustrous eyes upon the 
face of his “ideal woman.” “After that,” he added, “we 
surely are not going to allow you to escape us, Made¬ 
moiselle.” 

Violet lifted her grateful eyes to him. 

“Oh, monsieur! you—all of you are so generous,” she 
remarked, with a sudden gush of tears. 

“Yes, I will stay,” she promised them that evening. “But 
it is my earnest wish that those'with whom I have recently 
lived know nothing at present of my whereabouts.” 

“It is not probable that they will learn of it,” replied 
Mrs. Westphal, ‘‘as immediately after our return to San 
Francisco, following Vivian’s departure for Europe, we 
will repair to Santa^Barbara, where I have engaged a 
cottage for a year.” 

Violet could scarcely bring herself to believe in the 
reality of her newly opened life, as she sat that night 
with Vivian and Audrey Westphal on one of the se¬ 
cluded little verandas of the hotel Del Monte, gazing out 
on the moon-lit grounds, the unrivaled beauty of which 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 183 

has become familiar to tourists from every quarter of the 
globe. 

The wound in her heart was still bleeding, and the 
pain of it was intense; but these new-found friends and 
their vouchsafed confidence in her lent a balm whose sooth¬ 
ing influence she already felt. 


184 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXL 

“Is it thy will? 

My Father, say, must this pet lamb be given? 

O, Thou hast many such, dear Lord, in heaven.” 

And a soft voice said, “Nobly hast thou striven, 

But—peace be still.” 

“Why don’t mademoiselle come to me? I want made¬ 
moiselle!” 

“Love, I am here—your mamma.” 

“But I want Mademoiselle Violet. I want her! I want 
her. Send her to me!” 

Thus had Natalie been crying all day long for one far 
beyond the sound of her importunate call. 

It was late in the afternoon of the same day that Violet 
left Heartease when Gladys summoned Dr. Eversley to 
the nursery. At sight of his bearded face the child shrieked 
in a frenzy of disappointment: 

“I ask for Mademoiselle Violet, and you bring me a 
bear! No, no; you shall not touch me! I won’t put out 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


185 


my tongue! I don’t want any candy! I just want my 
lovely Violet to come to me. Why does she not come?” 

The doctor said if Mademoiselle Vavaseur could have 
been present the fever might have been checked in the 
beginning. But, as it was, despite all assiduous effort 
to subdue them, the ominous symptoms grew, and upon 
the second day pretty little Natalie Davanant lay panting, 
unconscious, a victim to the ravages of typhoid fever. 

“I shall send a cablegram for mother,” said Gladys, 
after Dr. Eversley had pronounced the case a malignant 
one. 

“What? Summon her from Switzerland and her trans¬ 
continental tour but half completed? Why, Gladys, that 
would be absurd,” remarked her sister^ deprecatingly. 

“Miriam, that is very unsympathetic of you. A terrible 
shadow is brooding over my life. How could I bear Na¬ 
talie’s death without mother here?” 

At her words Miriam paled slightly. 

“Natalie’s death?” she repeated. “Oh, Gladys, you are 
morbidly imaginative. This illness is not any more likely 
to result fatally than other former attacks that the child 
has experienced. Fevers are common to children.” 

“But Dr. Eversley has announced her condition to be 
very precarious. Homer recommends the cablegram 
and I shall send it at once,” persisted Mrs. Davanant, and 
that night her summons crossed the water to Mrs. Ver- 
noys, in Geneva. 



186 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


With the exception of Dr. Eversley, the guests had 
all left Heartsease; so it happened that during all the long, 
troublous days that ensued, when Davanant was not ab¬ 
sent, engaged in futile search for his lost betrothed, him¬ 
self and Miriam were frequently alone together. 

But they seldom exchanged a word, and Miriam could 
not bring herself to meet the eyes she often felt riveted 
upon her with a look that burned her soul—a keen, hyp¬ 
notic look, from which she always felt impelled to flee, 
lest she be forced by it to acknowledge her sin. One 
afternoon he happened upon her where she sat in the 
veranda, a book lying open in her lap, its pages stirred 
by the light breeze and showing that she read not. In 
truth, Miriam, wearied by the heat and the brooding 
stillness of all the place, had fallen asleep. 

He approached noiselessly and for some moments 
stood looking down into her countenance with that pene¬ 
trating, hypnotic stare that she feared so much. 

Presently the sleeper’s lips moved. 

Listen! what were the words they uttered? 

With straining ear and heart beating fast, Davanant 
leaned low over Miriam. 

“I divined it from the first. I knew, intuitively, when I 
looked upon her beautiful foreign face that she would 
dethrone me from your life, and so I began by hating her." 
That bracelet—you called it a talisman of eternal friend- 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


187 


ship! Ha! only that, when my heart was consumed by 
a passionate idolatry for you! It was my natural right 
to love you after your unerring devotion to me through 
years. And before she crossed your path I am certain 
you cared for me above all other women. I say that 
from the very first I felt she was destined to eclipse me 
in your life, and seeing this, I swore to condemn her in 
your eyes. I succeeded. Ha! ha! I gained my victory. 
I sent her from you. By false impeachment and treach¬ 
ery, yOu say? Well, but—ah!” 

Suddenly and with a violent start Miriam awoke. 

For a moment or two everything was confusion before 
her eyes. Then Davanant’s countenance resolved itself 
out of the chaos, with that terrible gaze still fastened upon 
her. 

A great dizziness came upon her, and she shuddered 
as with a chill. The sensations she felt were similar to 
those experienced upon wakening from a trance. Pres¬ 
ently, like a sound conveyed from a great distance, she 
heard his voice: 

“There has been a consultation,” he said. “The doctors 
have agreed that Natalie cannot recover.” 

At his words she shuddered again. Then she put out 
her hands as if,to assure herself of his presence, and, 
touching him, drew them instantly back. 

The action was as if she still thought herself to be dream- 


188 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


ing some terrible dream. But that contact convinced her 
of her wakefulness. 

Her face was ghastly and her eyes dilated with a look 
of intense suffering as they attempted to meet his, but 
failed. She essayed to speak, but no sound escaped her 
lips; they were the color of marble. 

“Yes, Natalie will die. They are expecting the end at 
any moment,” Davanant again spoke presently, and each 
word fell with a metallic hardness straightway onto Mir¬ 
iam’s heart, stifling that organ with anguish such as she 
had never before known. By a great effort she finally 
brought herself to answer him. 

“It is not possible! Natalie seemed better at noon.” 

“Yes,” answered Davanant; “just at the beginning of 
the crisis her symptoms seemed favorable, but since one 
o’clock she has been lying with eyes fixed vacantly, and 
no endeavor on the part of Gladys or the doctors can call 
from them a look of intelligence, while none of the ad¬ 
ministered opiates will induce the sleep which is essen¬ 
tial now the fever has abated. In a word, the child is in 
a waking coma—a stage that, in this malady, is a certain 
precursor of the worst.” 

“Has she not spoken?” questioned Miriam. 

“Yes; one name she keeps repeating at intervals—the 
same that she has unceasingly called throughout her ill¬ 
ness—Mademoiselle Violet.” 


189 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Miriam now started to her feet, one hand pressed against 
her heart. 

“Oh!” she cried; “if we could only recall the girl! Do 
you think that if Violet could be found and brought to her 
it would be possible yet to avert the worst?” 

“No, it is too late—too late, now, Miriam,” said Dava- 
nant, a tremor of emotion now palpable in his voice. “But 
if you had not sent her away Natalie would have re¬ 
covered.” 

Miriam repeated his words, striving to throw into them 
an accent of incomprehension. 

“If I had not sent her away—Violet?” 

She brought her eyes to meet his steadily now, for the 
first time. 

But he saw in them a dull, hunted look, an expression 
such as the eyes of an animal wounded unto death 
would wear. 

“Yes,” he replied, taking as he spoke something from 
his inner coat-pocket, and, nervously unwrapping from it a 
bit of tissue paper. “You know it is so, Miriam. You drew 
her into an intrigue. You betrayed and plunged her into 
overwhelming shame. You compelled her to leave Hearts¬ 
ease as she did through the instrumentality of—this brace¬ 
let!” 

As he held up the glittering emeralds before her he no¬ 
ticed her face go swiftly from marble pallor to burning 



190 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


scarlet, then he watched the blood recede, leaving her 
ghastlier than before. 

“Oh!” she cried at last, “this is an outrage! You have 
not the slightest proof of what you say. I-” 

He interrupted her by a gesture of his hand and a 
smothered ejaculation. 

“Miriam,” he said, his tone piercing, incisive as a steel 
point, “I know whereof I speak. You caused this bracelet 
to become a tool to falsely implicate Mademoiselle Vava- 
seur.” 

“I?” 

“Ah! woman, do not perjure your soul. Do not take 
upon yourself an added crime. In your sleep you con¬ 
fessed everything to me a moment or two ago. See! I 
destroy this despicable thing, as you, by the aid of it, de¬ 
stroyed the happiness of the girl who is my promised 
wife!” 

So saying, Davanant wrenched the bracelet in several 
parts and ground the fragments under his feet. — 

Miriam stood watching his impassioned action in dumb, 
motionless agony. Her attitude was like one paralyzed; 
her countenance betrayed all the defeat and hopeless 
misery of her soul. 

Presently some one came between herself and Dava¬ 
nant. 

It was Dr. Eversley. 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 191 

“Go to your sister, Miss Vernoys,” he said. “She needs 
you now” Whereupon Miriam slowly, mechanically left 
the veranda. 

When the^ were alone the doctor turned to Davahant. 

“All is over,” he said; “the little taper has flickered out.” 
And as he spoke there was a moisture in his eyes, which 
he made no attempt to conceal. 

For a moment Davanant stood silent under the excess 
of emotion which this announcement caused him. 

Then, as he dashed away from his cheek one large, slow- 
coursing tear, he murmured: 

“O Thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb, 
is this kind?” 










BOOK III 


On the Brink. 










, ■ VJ 





AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


195 


BOOK III. 


On the Brink. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

“I am wonderfully prepossessed tvith Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur. She is in every respect a gentlewoman,” re¬ 
marked Mrs. Westphal to her son, whose joy produced 
by the incidental coming of the young French girl into 
his daily life was such as he could scarcely hold in re¬ 
straint. 

Upon the first night following their return from Del 
Monte to the city Vivian sought Violet in her room after 
the latter had retired, and, kneeling beside her bed, said: 

“To think that in a few days I am to leave you.” 

Violet reached out in the dark and touched the hand 
lying upon her cover-lid. 

“Are you pained at the thought of going away, Miss 
Westphal?” she questioned in a tone of surprise. 


i 





190 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“Pleace don’t call me that,” said her vivacious com¬ 
panion. “I like only formal acquaintances to call me 
‘Miss Westphal;’ you are one of the family. Let us be 
Violet and Vivian to each other—like sisters.” 

“Ah, you are very kind. It will seem sweet to call you 
that,” said Mademoiselle, a glad vibration in her accent. 

“Well, as you were asking me, I have come to regret 
awfully the thought of leaving home. All my life I have 
dreamed of floating in a gondola on Venetian waters, of 
picking edelweiss from the glaciers of Switzerland, of 
being in Rome at the Lenten season and listening to the 
music at the World’s Cathedral, of viewing the ancient 
marbles at the Capitol, the Vatican and Pio Clementino; 
of being fitted by Worth; of being presented to the queen 
—this has been my heart’s desire for years. But now I 
am on the eve of realizing it all, my ambition seems sud¬ 
denly to have paled. I hate leaving you just in the be¬ 
ginning of our acquaintance, and, Violet—I tell you 
this in confidence—I am leaving a lover also ” 

She did not notice the convulsive movement of the 
hand softly clasping hers. 

“A lover?” repeated Violet, after a brief pause. 

“Yes. Have you never had a lover?” 

Pause, during which a gasp was suppressed suc¬ 
cessfully. Then Violet answered evasively; 

“I have had limited opportunities, Vivian,” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


197 


“Well, the time will come when you will know how de- 
lightful it is to be loved by a noble man, and when you 
will love him in return with your whole soul, as I love 
Thurston Douglas. Since I engaged myself to him scarce¬ 
ly a month ago, the gondola, the glaciers, St. Peter's, the 
Vatican and Pio Clementino, Worth and the queen's# 
drawing-room appear wholly insignificant. Life seems to 
lie entirely on this side the Atlantic,.where Thurston is." 

“Of course. The separation, however, will only tend 
to strengthen your attachment for each other," observed 
Violet, softly. 

“Oh!" exclaimed the other, “it is sure to! Nothing can 
ever come between us. Have you noticed my ring? No? 

I will light the gas that you may see it now." So saying, 
Vivian sprang to her feet and the next instant the room 
was flooded with light. 

Returning toward the bed she held her hand so that 
the engagement ring would show to its best advantage. 

“Look,” she cried, “is it not a beautiful diamond?” 
Then suddenly catching sight of the other's tear-stained 
face, she sprang back. 

“Why do you weep, Violet?" she questioned, in dis¬ 
may. 

Mademoiselle tried to force a smile. 

“You seem so happy. I cannot help it, Vivian,” she 
answered incoherently, then; “Your ring is, indeed, 


198 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

beautiful,” she said. “I pray your felicity may prove as 
enduring and flawless as the jewel in it. Lean down and 
let me kiss you, dear.” 

The day arrived when Vivian and her chaperon sailed 
for foreign parts, immediately following which event Mrs. 
Westphal commenced her preparations for Santa Barbara. 
Two days previous to that appointed for their departure 
Mademoiselle Vavaseur was commissioned to execute a 
little final shopping for her patron, and the carriage was 
ordered for her at two. 

It being yet early in the afternoon when her errands 
were completed, she bought some white violets and or¬ 
dered the coachman to drive to Mount Calvary cemetery, 
as she wished to place the flowers upon the grave of her 
mother—the grave above which there now rose a beautiful 
and costly monument. This had been erected without 
her knowledge during the months that Violet had passed 
at Heartsease. She knew full well at whose generosity the 
tribute to her dead had been inspired; she knew well whose 
voice had dictated the simple epitaph engraved upon 
the marble. The first time she had visited the hallowed 
spot upon her return from the mountains she had throvvn 
herself beside the monument and, with both arms clasping 
it, had alternately laughed and wept in a hysteria of glad 
surprise. But her cu'p of joy held its bitter dregs and 
the draught above the wormwood lay shallow. She could 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


199 


not go to Davanant and acknowledge his noble gift and 
fall upon her knees before him in idolizing gratitude, as 
she craved to do. The slab was there not >alone to apprise 
passers-by of the respective names, ages and nativities of 
the pair who slept beneath, but also to serve to Violet as a 
perpetual reminder of all that she had once been to the 
donor thereof, what she was now to him and must hence¬ 
forth be. 

On her way to the cemetery the afternoon in question 
her carriage passed a funeral cortege headed in the same 
direction. The train was a lengthy one, preceded by a 
white hearse, drawn by four snowy horses. 

“A child is dead,” the girl commented sadly to herself, 
as she passed swiftly by, and the rumbling of the carriage 
wheels seemed to repeat over and over again the dolorous 
words: 

“A child is dead;>a child is' dead.” 

Even as she stood beside her mother’s tomb the wind 
in the trees above her seemed to moan the low requiem: 
“A child is dead, a child is dead.” 

All night the words sounded in Violet’s sleep and in 
the morning when she wakened the white hearse,, drawn 
by four spotless steeds, passed in fancy before her. 

“Oh, why should that haunt me so?” she cried aloud in 
sore distress. 

It was shortly after breakfast when Audrey Westphal 


m 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


entered the sitting-room to find Mademoiselle lying in¬ 
animate upon the floor, a paper chronicling an account 
of Natalie Davanant’s death crushed in her hand. 

It was the funeral of her beloved little friend that she 
had witnessed! 





AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


201 


/ 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Davanant looked quite ill when he sauntered into his 
club the evening following the funeral. There were 
broad, dark lines under his eyes, and the expression of his 
pale face was intensely melancholy. 

The narrow band of crape on his hat was sufficient 
apology for his not joining any of the groups of his col¬ 
leagues, in all of which there was current, more or less, 
hilarity. But the crape scarcely accounted for the man¬ 
ner in which he sat throughout two hours, staring ab¬ 
stractedly at the carpet, the fire on his cigar gone out, the 
lapel of his coat amply sprinkled with ash from the neg¬ 
lected weed. 

To this man who had been accustomed to a life un¬ 
trammeled by personal vexations of any serious nature 
there had suddenly come a phase of sorrow the gloom 
and bitterness of which, it seemed to him at moments, 
was beyond his endurance. 

Gladys' recent bereavement had so undermined her 
health as to render imperative an entire and immediate 


202 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

change of scene. The doctors advised her to go abroad. 

Miriam was suffering from an attack of nervous prostra¬ 
tion, and her condition called for the constant attendance 
of her mother, lately arrived from Europe. 

Therefore but one alternative remained. Davanant him¬ 
self must necessarily accompany his sister-in-law upon 
her travels. He felt ineffable aversion toward the woman 
who had brought all this upon him. If he could have re¬ 
trieved the happiness she had so sinfully sent out of his life 
perhaps his heart might have been softened toward her 
somewhat. Knowing of Miriam’s love for him he might in 
time have forgiven the sin engendered by that passion 
could Violet only have been restored to him. Continued 
search for the lost one was now about to be rendered im¬ 
practicable on account of his obligation toward his broth¬ 
er’s widow. With the broad ocean between himself and 
California, what could he hope for toward Violet’s happi¬ 
ness and his own? A space of months must necessarily 
elapse before his return to San Francisco, in which indef¬ 
inite interval what might not Violet be brought to endure 
of the ills inevitably attendant upon penury? He had visit¬ 
ed every convent in the city in futile quest of her. 

“O God! where is my loved one this night?” he mentally 
petitioned again and again as he sat there, the ash cold on 
his cigar, his heart on fire instead. “She is beautiful, in¬ 
nocent, young and the city is full of wickedness!” 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 203 

Once during his search about the streets he had hap¬ 
pened upon a figure crouching upon the steps of St. Ig¬ 
natius’ Church—a woman’s figure wrapped in a black 
circular resembling one he had seen Violet wear. His 
heart had given a great bound. Could it possibly be Vio¬ 
let? He had stepped up and spoken softly to the-woman, 
who had lifted to his view a countenance of such wretched 
abandonment that he had started back uttering a low 
cry of revolt. 

“Alms, sir? I am very poor and sick,” the miserable 
vagabond had muttered, stretching gaunt hands toward 
him, and he had dropped a coin in her palm. Then the 
bell tolled for vespers and he had gone into the chapel, 
where for some time he had sat close to the shrine of 
“Our Lady of Lourdes,? who, Violet had once told him, 
had been her mother’s patron saint. 

He had hoped that through some providential guidance 
she would come and kneel there. But she did not, and 
he had left the church thinking of the abandoned vagrant, 
his heart wrung with dread lest his betrothed were cast 
abroad that night in a city of wicked allurements. 

At last, as Davanant sat plunged in at>ysmal melan¬ 
choly, some one touched him lightly on the shoulder. 

“Ah! you, Westphal?” he observed, lifting his eyes from 
the carpet. 

“Well, old boy, and how’s it with you?” said Audrey, 



204 


AFTER THE-NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


flinging himself into a chair on the opposite side of the 
little table. 

Davanant did not reply to this off-hand query. 

“Have a cigar?” he asked. 

“Don’t object,” said the young cadet. Then, after light¬ 
ing and taking an initiatory puff at the “new brand, rec¬ 
ommended by the club,” he remarked with his affected 
drawl: 

“Aw—I only learned to-day of the death of your little 
niece. By jove, a great misfortune that! Natalie was a 
winsome, jolly child—awfully jolly, doncherknow?” 

Davanant’s eyelids trembled, but he made no response. 

“The last time I saw her,” went on Audrey, “was on 
the day of Miss Vernoys’ garden party last month. She 
was with your protegee, Mademoiselle Vavaseur, down 
by the deer glen, and, doncherknow, she appeared sort 
of combative toward me because I approached and asked 
her to speak me a piece. Yes, she was a jolly child.” 

Pause, during which Davanant discarded his old cigar 
and bit the end off a fresh one preparatory to lighting. 

“She thought whole oceans of Mademoiselle Vavaseur?” 
again spoke Westphal interrogatively. 

His vis-a-vis merely inclined his head affirmatively. 

“Pity she could not have been at Heartsease during 
Natalie’s illness.” 

Davanant looked at the speaker with eyes of eager in¬ 
quiry. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


205 


“I met Dr. Eversley this afternoon. He told me the 
child begged incessantly for Mademoiselle,” Audrey ex¬ 
plained. % 

There ensued another constrained pause, during which 
Davanant wondered if the doctor had mentioned to West- 
phal Violet’s flight from Heartsease and the attending 
circumstances thereof. He bit his lips hard, then opened 
them as if to speak, but they made no audible sound. 

“Why did you allow Mademoiselle to leave Heartsease? 
Did you become weary of your protegee?” Audrey asked, 
abruptly. 

At the question a quick fire leaped to Davanant’s eyes. 
His face grew crimson with latent passion, the veins on 
his temples swelled almost to bursting. 

He leaned over the table toward Westphal, looking 
him squarely in the eye with a glance which the cadet 
shrank from. 

“I am tempted to strike you for those words!” he said, 
huskily, breathing hard. “I would give my entire fortune, 
far dearer than which I hold her, if I only knew the where¬ 
abouts of Mademoiselle Vavaseur to-night. She fled from 
Heartsease believing I thought her guilty of a crime of 
which she was falsely accused in the presence of men and 
women whom you know well. She is guiltless as an angel 
in heaven, and I charge you, Audrey Westphal, with the 
refutation of any slander which may reach you, involv- 


206 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


ing her name. I love Mademoiselle Vavaseur. She is 
my promised wife. Day after to-morrow I am leaving San 
Francisco, taking my invalid sister-in-la^ abroad for an 
indefinite time, perhaps a year. Should I recover my be¬ 
trothed before starting she shall accompany us. But I fear 
that hopeless now. I have not obtained the slightest 
clew concerning Violet, and my sister’s health is so pre¬ 
carious that I cannot delay departure in order to continue 
a personal search for her.” 

Westphal’s eyes wavered under the steadfast look the 
speaker bent upon him. His face turned slightly pale and 
he coughed, as if the smoke from his cigar might have 
choked him. 

Presently he said, in a cleverly assumed tone of remorse: 

“Aw—I beg your pardon, Davanant. I was not aware 
that your sentiments toward Mademoiselle Vavaseur 
were of so serious a nature, or I would not have spoken as 
I did.” 

A few moments later Audrey left the club. 

“You would sacrifice your entire fortune to recover 
your fiancee, eh, chappie?” he humorously meditated on 
his way home. “I reckon that would aggregate a couple 
of millions. But I am not mercenary. I prefer Violet! 
Drama—in which Audrey Westphal, villain, conspires 
against philanthropist-lover, and during the latter’s en¬ 
forced absence abroad weds his beautiful protegee. Ha! 
all is fair in love and war. The wind is in my favor and 
all will be clear sailing!” 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


207 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

Miriam Vernoys had played high and lost—everything. 

The iniquitous seed which she had sown had yielded 
thorns by which she was being crucified, and the brands 
upon her soul she believed could never be eradicated. 

Bombazines and crapes had been sent, according to 
her order, to the modistes’, and Vanity Fair criticised her 
sharply upon her adoption of deep mourning for one so 
young as Natalie had been. 

There were times when Miriam felt that her life would 
have been unendurable had it not been for the secret 
visitations she made to the confessional. The thought 
that she herself had been the medium of her niece’s death 
had engendered within her a horror compared to which 
the sufferings induced by her consciousness of Davanant’s 
knowledge of her sin and his apparent hatred of her in 
consequence of it was but a smart which was often for¬ 
gotten because of that superlative and always present 
thought: 


208 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“I am a murderess!” 

It haunted her day and night like a terrible spectre. 

Of the gay world in which she had formerly moved, a 
courted belle, she knew nor cared nothing now. Cards 
and invitations lay piled upon her writing-desk, many un¬ 
opened, all unanswered, and she steadfastly denied herself 
to all callers. 

One evening, upon going, as usual, to her mistress’ 
room, Jael found her waiting to have her hair brushed 
preparatory to retiring. 

There were elegant lace and silken draperies about her; 
there were smiling Loves, floating among lotus wreaths 
overhead; there were costly vases filled with fresh-cut 
roses; there were delicate perfumes and subdued lights, 
and she, the queen of this luxurious environment, sat 
before a long mirror, her dead-gold hair showered in all its 
magnificence clear down to the carpet, her eyes totally in¬ 
different to the beauty which had won her many a deserved 
compliment in past untroubled days. 

“Why do you sigh so habitually of late, Miss Miriam?” 
Jael questioned sympathetically, parting the long, bright 
ripples of hair preliminary to braiding them. 

“I am weary, Jael—so unspeakably weary of everything! 
There is no repose in the world,” Miriam replied, adding 
to herself those fitting lines of Virgil: 

Ah, had I lived estranged from Love— 

Nor tampered with this woe— 


AFTER THE [NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


209 


She was on the eve of dismissing her maid when there 
came a hurried rap at her door, opening which, Jael en¬ 
countered the butler. 

“Two Sisters of Charity beg a brief interview with Miss 
Vernoys,” said the man. 

Miriam heard his message with obvious surprise. She 
said, however. v 

“Certainly I will see them. Give me my dressing-gown 
and slippers, Jael, and instruct Greyson to show the Sisters 
up here.” 

When her visitors were ushered into her presence she 
received them with quiet gravity. Then, after Jael had 
placed chairs for them, she motioned the girl to retire, 
and waited as the tallest of the nuns put aside her long 
black veil, revealing a middle-aged and kindly face. 

“Miss Vernoys,” she promptly spoke, “it is relative to 
Mademoiselle Vavaseur that we have come to you to¬ 
night, trusting you will grant our mission to be one war¬ 
ranting our informality.” 

Miriam bowed assent. 

“We deemed it possible,” went on the woman, “that 
since the departure of Mr. Davanant from the city some 
news might have reached you concerning the missing 
-girl ?” 

“No—I regret to state that nothing whatever has been 
heard regarding Mademoiselle Vavaseur,” 


210 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Miriam spoke complacently, but a restless weaving to¬ 
gether of her fingers betrayed a latent agitation. 

There was a brief pause, then Sister Agnes spoke again: 

“Just previous to Mr. Davanant’s departure for foreign 
parts he called at our convent and told us the news 
of Mademoiselle Violet's unfortunate disappearance from 
the mountain home of your sister, praying that we should 
engage in faithful search for the missing girl. We have 
looked for her ceaselessly, but without any enlighten¬ 
ment whatsoever. 

“This day we were authentically informed of a splendid 
inheritance left to Violet by a relative who died in Mexico 
over a year ago. A priest, of whose parish the said de¬ 
ceased was a member, was left the sacred trust of the legacy 
and during all these months has been searching for the 
heiress. Coming to our convent this afternoon on mis¬ 
sion of inquiry concerning Madame Escalante-Vavaseur, 
Violet’s mother, he learned from Sister Celia and myself, 
who were preseift at the death-bed of that lady, last Christ¬ 
mas time, that her fortune came too late. We told him 
of the surviving daughter and now legal heiress to the 
Escalante estates, and he was broken down with grief and 
disappointment to learn of Violet’s mysterious disappear¬ 
ance. To-morrow he expects to begin an assiduous search 
for the lost girl, and we had devoutly hoped that you, Miss 
Vernoys, might be able to furnish him some clew, however 
slight.” 






AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 211 

As she finished speaking the nun noticed that Miriam’s 
lips were compressed and rigid, while a dull anguish 
looked out from her darkly under-circled eyes. 

“You suffer—you are ill?” Sister Agnes said, in a voice 
of tender/ solicitude. 

“Yes, holy Sister, I suffer. I suffer from dire appre¬ 
hensions as to the fate of the wronged and homeless Vio¬ 
let. Gladly would I give everything I possess in money, 
and jewels, if that could in any manner aid toward her re¬ 
covery.” 

“Heaven bless you, oh, daughter!” the Sister fervently 
exclaimed. “You are truly noble and munificent.” 

“No, no!” cried Miriam, lifting her hand in a quick 
gesture of deprecation; “do not say that—you would not 
say that if you could see into my heart!” 

The nuns gazed at her in silent wonder as she said this. 
And realizing all at once the force of her words, which had 
been spoken under the impulse of keen emotion, a faint 
flush rose to Miriam’s face, but died out instantly, leaving 
it quite colorless as before. 

“Your heart, we are sure, daughter, can hide nothing 
sinful—nothing but from which you would gain ready ab¬ 
solution at the confessional,” presently spoke Sister Celia 
from behind her somber veil. 

Miriam winced at these words, breathing hard. Should 
she reveal all her wretched guilt to these godly women? 





212 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

If so, would they hear her confession with condemning or 
pitying hearts? 

She craved their counsel. The unveiled face looked 
beneficent; she could not see the other, but tenderly had 
sounded Sister Celia’s voice. 

She trembled a moment with irresolution, then sud¬ 
denly determined to lay bare her heart before them, no 
matter what the cost. 

She spoke with a great inward effort, but her voice 
sounded quite calm: 

“Would you, O holy women, deem my sin one from 
which I could find ready absolution were I to tell you that'' 
I myself malignantly caused Violet Vavaseur to adopt the 
alternative that she did—to flee from lover, friends and 
home out into the world, where her innocent life is now 
plunged in unfathomable mystery? Oh, do not look at me 
like that! I cannot bear it,” Miriam suddenly cried, as 
Sister Celia, with a quick, excited movement, threw aside 
her veil, to stare at her with eyes wearing an intensely 
horrified expression. 

At Miriam’s entreating words she replaced the black fab¬ 
ric and, with clasped hands, waited for the young girl to 
continue. Miriam glanced furtively at Sister Agnes’ coun¬ 
tenance before she essayed any further remark. It was 
very pale, with a slight tremor about the sweet mouth; but 
otherwise the nun was calm, and so she took courage to 
pursue. 







AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 213 

“Yes, it is so. I loved, and knowing my passion to be 
unrequited—knowing that the man whom I all but wor¬ 
shipped lavished his best affections upon Violet Vavaseur, 

I madly sought revenge upon my rival. I had a-valuable 
bracelet; I secreted this in a jewel-box wherein Made¬ 
moiselle kept an heirloom of pearls, and one night, when 
there were a number of guests at Heartsease, I caused 
her to open her casket of pearls, and to stand a condemned 
thief in the sight of all. I seem to see her now before me 
as she stood during that scene, her agonized face appeal¬ 
ing to me for exoneration. But I scorned her misery. I 
saw her leave the room, staggering, almost falling under 
the blow that I had leveled upon her so surely. She fled 
that night from Heartsease. Then quickly ensued the 
sickness of my little niece, who had loved Mademoiselle 
Violet with a love that was more than filial, almost idol¬ 
atrous. On the very night of Violet's flight she was seized 
by the fever from which she died. The doctors said the 
symptoms could have been checked in their earliest stage 
if only Mademoiselle could have been there. Natalie 
called for her pitifully, with every breath almost, up 
to the very hour she died. Then—I saw myself in all my 
wretched criminality—a murderess! I am such now before 
the all-divining God—a. murderess, untried of justice! 
Think you now, O Sisters of holiness, there is any possible 
hope for me of absolution?" 




214 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

A long, heavy silence followed upon this question, which 
was asked in a husky, faltering tone. 

“Yes, there is a hope,” spoke Sister Agnes at length, 
a slow-coursing tear upon each cheek, one hand closely 
clasping the ebony crucifix on her chatelaine. She touched 
the image of the Savior on this, and went on in low, half 
tremulous accents: 

“He hath said, ‘Though your sins be as red as crimson, 
they shall be as white as snow.’ There is for you one 
sure means of atonement, Miriam Vernoys. You will 
find it at the foot of the Cross.” 

A sudden light passed over Miriam’s countenance as 
she heard these words. 

“Ah!” she said, “I would give my very life if that would 
compensate.” 4 Then she wept, for the first time in months. 

“Send to me to-morrow the priest of whom you have 
spoken,” she said, as the nuns took leave of her soon 
after. “I have something I wish to say to him.” 

And Padre Baptiste sought her, accordingly. 

“Father,” said Miriam, approaching him, “you said 
that day at Carmelo, when you showed me the crucifix 
you had just discovered in the ancient church, that, though 
you could not see my face plainly, you took it I was 
kind.” 

The priest shrunk back at her astounding words, put¬ 
ting out one tremulous hand, as if to ward them off. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


216 


“What?” he exclaimed incredulously. “Thou, thou, 
Miss Vernoys, the erstwhile daily associate of Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur, art the horsewoman with whom I had brief 
converse that afternoon? To whom I made mention con¬ 
cerning the heiress of the Escalante fortunes?” 

“I am that wretched woman, Father. . Will you hear my 
full confession?” 

Padre Baptiste made a grieved assent, and Miriam fell 
upon her knees before him. 


216 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Among the adobe houses which Santa Barbara still 
proudly claims as memorials of early Spanish days, there is 
a suburban one in a perfect state of preservation. Its 
walls, of a generous thickness, are impervious alike to 

heat and chill; its floors are of slate, smooth and highly 
polished; its broad window casements are inlaid with 

native wood, in mosaic patterns; the rooms are long and 
wide, with low ceils, upon some of which are presented 
beautiful frescoes in discs and arabesques; the tile roof is 
underlaid with rain-proof thatch, and rambling ve¬ 
randas offer cool, vine-shaded precincts for an afternoon 
siesta. 

Once Casa Blanca was surrounded by an expanse of 
cultivated lands, but the estate has gradually dwindled 
away, until nothing but a narrow court-yard remains, to¬ 
gether with an old-fashioned garden, where Castilian 
roses show their sweet blush-faces the whole year round, 
overstarred by jessamine and purple passion flowers. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


217 


From varied points of this comely bungalow are to be 
viewed the environs of the valley: southward the sea, 
breaking upon a sloping, sandy beach, where bathers 
delight to revel; westward the mesa, lying in smooth, 
shadowy slopes, from the highest of which rise up, in 
somber picturesqueness, a series of gray, castellated tow¬ 
ers; eastward the darkly wooded canyons of Montecito, 
and far to the north the purple, the serrated chain of Santa 
Inez mountains, stamped imposingly against the heavens. 

Casa Blanca had been leased by the Westphals. 

It was one sultry afternoon in early September that 
Audrey lay fast asleep in a hammock within the vine-clad 
veranda, while at a short distance from him Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur sat, languidly weaving lace-work. She wore a 
gown of pale heliotrope organdie, well suited to her dark 
type of beauty, but above which her face appeared quite 
colorless and void of that girlish animation which had 
characterized it in those days when she had roamed the 
mountain dells with Natalie. Violet had suffered bitter, 
poignant griefs since then, and the expression of her dark 
eyes, when she occasionally looked up from her work, told 
that she still suffered. 

That her bonny child-companion of the recent fair sum¬ 
mer—Natalie, who had had a face dimpl-ed and ruddy with 
health, who had had sparkling blue eyes and a halo of 
golden curls—Natalie, whose soft, warm arms had so fre- 


V.;-. ", ■■ - ■ ~ •- • ^ .• ■ 


218 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

quently clasped her neck with clinging caresses, whose 
little rose-bud mouth had pressed unnumbered kisses 
upon her own—was now dead, lying like a form in ala¬ 
baster, upon one of the cold stone shelves in her family 
vault, she had never been able to fully realize. On the 
day that she had read the notice of her death in the paper 
she had gone, incredulously, to the cemetery and question¬ 
ed of the keeper if any one had lately been laid in the 
mausoleum of the Davanants. 

“Yes,” the man had told her, “a child. Would she care 
to see? If so, he would unlock the tomb.” 

And silently she had followed him. 

She had entered to gaze, with mute, heart-breaking 
grief, upon the white coffin, which bore the simple inscrip¬ 
tion on an ivory plate: 

NATALIE; 
age, six years. 

She had knelt beside the casket, praying as well as her 
dazed senses would let her, and wetting a pillow of white 
valley-lilies with her tears. Then the keeper had locked 
up the iron gate and she had gone away. It was a great 
sorrow—one that left a wound in her heart which time 
could never entirely heal. 

But she was young, and hearts healthy as hers are cer¬ 
tain to rebound after the first bitterness of a grief has 
passed. As she sat on the veranda that September after- 


219 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

noon, meditatively regarding the surrounding scenery, 
a smile, faint, evanescent, yet still a smile, crossed her 
countenance. 

“Beautiful Santa Barbara!” she said to herself. “You 
seem to have animated my life anew. Your breezes have 
fanned fresh courage into my soul; your everlasting moun¬ 
tains inspire me to ennobling thought. See them, leaning 
yonder against the sky—the Santa Inez mountains, sub¬ 
lime, majestic, indestructible! What an exquisite rich¬ 
ness of coloring! Artists may attempt to imitate those 
blues and mauves and soft lavenders, radiating in the sun¬ 
light, but they will never succeed, nor will they ever attain 
those dark purples and neutral tints that sink away into 
mysterious shadows. Masterpiece of the world’s Great 
Artist, my heart expands with adoration of thee! 

“And behold the expanses of glittering verdure that 
clothe the earth on every side; the trees, hung with luscious 
golden fruit. See these beautiful cataracts of roses! And 
mingled perfumes freight the air to sweet intoxication. 
Ah! after all, I am glad to be living in this fairest of all 
lands!” 

“Violet, what a beatific reverie yours must be. Your 
face is fairly aglow. Pardon me for interrupting your 
thoughts, but I’ve been lying here, watching you until, 
by Jove, I feel envious.” 

It was Audrey, who spoke from the hammock. 


220 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Violet looked toward him, laughing softly. 

“Say, what were you thinking about? Tell me, Made¬ 
moiselle,” pleaded the young cadet, rising to a sitting 
posture and fixing serious eyes upon her. 

“I was thinking how perfectly beautiful everything is 
about us here, and wondering that with such an environ¬ 
ment one could be otherwise than glad to live.” 

At her words Audrey’s eyes became lustrous. He kept 
on regarding her fixedly. 

“I knew you would like it here,” he said. “But you 
have not as yet seen the smallest part of Santa Barbara’s 
surroundings. You have only seen Montecito and the 
mesa. Wait until I show you Mission Canyon and the 
Seven Falls. Wait until you see some of the arroyos and 
the Cathedral Oaks. Then, you know, we are to take an 
excursion to the summit of Santa Inez mountains, an al¬ 
titude of four thousand feet above the sea level. Oh! I 
promise you, you will be duly fascinated with the view 
from there. If possible, I want you to see it at sunset, 
under a clear sky, when the sea, islands, valleys, canyons 
and table-lands are brilliant with iridescences reflected 
from the sky. The scene is unrivaled! After the summit 
we are going to ‘La Piedra Pintada,’ the Painted Cave, 
where you will see a series of record-pictures, the work of 
Indians whose tribes are now unknown. The cave in it¬ 
self is an art-work of Nature; it is an excavation beneath 


221 


* 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

a monstrous rock, measuring twenty feet across and eight 
feet high. It is located on the top of a mountain, and is 
reached from Marcos Pass. You will have ample oppor¬ 
tunity for your favorite entomological researches upon 
these excursions; the canyons and mountain recesses 
abound in all manner of insects, and I, forewarn you, you 
will probably now and -then have a glimpse of wild-cat, 
lynx and coyote; even, perchance, a grizzly bear, as some 
are known to range hereabouts.” 

“Oh, how interesting!” softly exclaimed Violet, her 
hands clasped over her lace-work, her cheeks delicately 
flushed with elation. “When shall we commence our se¬ 
ries of exploits?” 

“To-morrow, if you wish,” he answered. 


222 


■ ■ .' ^ ^.. . . . v ■ •'« 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

There was inherent in her her father’s spirit of romantic 
adventure, and to analyze the mystic handiwork of Nature 
became to Violet a study the fascination of which increased 
daily. 

She was full of vital force and not easily fatigued, so 
frequently her pilgrimages with Audrey lasted from sun¬ 
rise until dusk. She did not mind the season’s heat upon 
heights where spicy breezes stirred through cloistered 
oak and sycamore, and where crystal streams yielded pure, 
cooling draughts. Frequently, while her companion lay 
in covert, awaiting an opportunity to bring down a flock 
of quail or a rabbit with his rifle, she would force her way 
through some intricate jungle, notwithstanding the thorns 
that rent her clothes and made rude invasions on her deli¬ 
cate skin, in search of specimens of insects or wood, which 
upon cutting revealed curved patterns of graining, and 
colors so delicately brilliant that she could scarce believe 
but that an artist’s brush had wrought them. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


223 


The wild lilac (ceanothus) was one of her favorite spe¬ 
cies, about two dozen different kinds of which thrive in 
California’s forests. In the spring this shrub is covered 
with a sweet-odored blossom, deviating in color from 
purest white to lilac, magenta and deep purple; the wood 
thereof is substantial and capable of an exquisite polish. 
It had first been brought under her observation at the lab¬ 
oratory of a celebrated wood-carver in Santa Barbara, 
where it forms the chief settings in some native mosaics, 
as delicate in construction as jewel work. 

Everywhere they went they found reminiscences of the 
Indians, and Violet would always return home with her 
little basket filled with relics, which treasure she zealously 
stored away, loving every piece of wood and mineral, 
every shell and Indian-bead and piece of obsidian, because 
each was an unerring part of the index relative to the 
clime and country of which she -herself was a native daugh¬ 
ter. 

“You should have been an artist, Mademoiselle Violet,” 
said Audrey to her one day as they sat in the shade of the 
“Cathedral Oaks,” she blending together a lot of wild- 
flowers which he had tossed into her lap. 

“You have such an eye for colors, you know, and I am 
certain you could copy the grace of this foliage and the 
symmetrical curves of these mammoth limbs on canvas.” 

Violet smiled at his words, but shook her head depre- 
catingly. 


224 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“There is always something about amateur art that 
makes me sorry for the painters,” she said. “I could not 
bear to see my first effort upon the easel; its crudity would 
seem to me a sacrilege.” 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Andrey, leaning near her, at full 
length upon the ground, the sunbeams which fell through 
the eaves above turning all his classical curls into gold. 
“I shall get an artist to instruct you. There are several 
passable ones in Santa Barbara.” 

“Merci, non, bon ami! You are very kind, but I prefer 
scientific research. Oh! I love it! Were it possible, I 
would be an accomplished archaeologist, such as my father 
was. I would travel over the world—everywhere, in 
search of treasures relating to past ages.” 

Audrey looked at her, his eyes lustrous with a f.re which 
Violet had noticed in them before, and slightly wondered 
at. 

“There is no reason,” he said softly, “why you should 
not realize your ambition, Violet. You can travel over the 
world-” 

“Why,” she answered in a bewildered kind of tone, tak¬ 
ing up as she spoke a handful of dead leaves, and crushing 
them between her palms, “how could that be possible? 
One must have money in order to see anything of the 
world.” 

The luster in Audrey’s eyes deepened so that it seemed 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


225 


to absorb all the glow of his cheeks; they turned suddenly 
pale. He reached out and caught up one of her hands, 
holding it in a clasp that hurt her. 

“Violet, my love,” he said, scarcely above a whisper, 
“you and I could see the world together!” 

With an agitated movement she drew her hand free. 

“Oh!” she cried, her face now paler than his, her dark 
eyes quickening with tears. “What have you said? Al¬ 
ways, Audrey, I have regarded you—I never dreamed that 
you-” 

“Loved you?” he passionately interrupted her. “Oh, 
Violet! how could you help seeing that? From the very 
first—from the day 1 saw you under the oak-tree at 
Heartsease I have loved you as a man can love but once 
in a lifetime. Oh! Violet, will you not let me hope for 
happiness?” 

For a moment strong emotion rendered it impossible 
for her to answer him. When she at length spoke her voice 
sounded with a strange bitterness. 

“Audrey, I implore you, never to sp*eak again to me in 
this manner. Should you, I will wish that I had died that 
evening when you found me on the road, above the sea!” 

He drooped his head, and was silent. For some time 
he remained with his face bowed down close to the dead 
leaves. Then he rose and went slowly toward a patch of 
wild oats, where their horses were tethered. 



226 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


She followed him presently, a blurring moisture before 
her eyes. 

* “Poor Audrey!” she bitterly reflected, parting her way 
thruogh the tall, dry grasses. “And must you be called 
upon to suffer that heart-pain that I myself am so familiar 
with? Oh, I pity you; I pity you!” 

Could she have divined that by his own act had 
been wrought the breach existing then between herself and 
Davanant, would she have felt any commiseration toward 
her new suitor? 

That night she knelt at her window casement, in a 
long, loose white robe, and gazed out upon the stars, in 
unutterable sadness. 

“Love, it seems,” she reflected, “is synonymous with 
heart-ache and grief. Why could not Audrey and I have 
continued as friends, companions, brother and sister to 
each other? I never dreamed that he was making me an 
altar for his vain sacrifice. Why does God let such things 
be?” 

She was disappointed, grieved, rebellious at the con¬ 
tingency that had risen so abruptly, to estrange her from 
one with whom she had enjoyed a protracted and felicitous 
season of companionship. And thoughts of future days, 
when she would unavoidably be thrown much in Audrey’s 
society, and be compelled, by what had happened, to de¬ 
port herself toward him with coldness and restraint, made 
her unhappiness complete. 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


When she at length rose to draw the blinds, she looked 
down into the garden and saw the object of her medita¬ 
tions standing by the fountain, his mute sadness revealed 
in the moonlight, his, attitude that of deep dejection. 

For some moments her eyes dwelt pityingly upon his 
motionless figure, and when she noiselessly withdrew 
from the window, it was to throw herself across her bed, 
there to weep some of the tears lying so heavily upon her 
heart. 



228 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Early in October a letter arrived from Vivian. She 
wrote from Switzerland: 

It is lovely here. We are at a pension, about two miles out of 
Interlaken, in plain view of the Jungfrau, with the beautiful lake at 
our feet. My balcony faces the west, giving me the benefit of the 
glorious sunsets. Upon our arrival here, whom should we en¬ 
counter, the very first thing, but Mr. Davanant and his sister-in- 
law. Gladys’ health is much improved, but she is not yet strong 
enough to join us qn any of our Alpine excursions. Mr. Davanant 
went with us to Murren, where he was the only one fortunate 
enough to find an edelweiss, as it is late in the season for them. 
I begged it from him, to send to “one at home, whom I love 
dearly.” I would have taken a special delight in naming her to 
him, but did not dare to, on account of Violet’s wish to remain ob¬ 
scure. I hope she will not scorn my little thought, the edelweiss, 
because his hand plucked it. Remember, he imperiled his life 
in climbing to the spot where it grew, and it was really sweet 
of him to relinquish his treasure to me, after it had been so dearly 
won. I send the flower to Violet, along with these appropriate 
lines, composed by a lady in Interlaken: 

“On Alpine heights there blooms a flower, 

So soft, so white, ’mid snow and ice, 





AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


229 


Well meet to grace the Jungfrau’s bower, 
And mortals call it edelweiss. 

For white must all that’s noble be 
And bloom from earth far, far apart, 

So she that’s robed in purity 
Must wear an edelweiss at heart. 

“Stars of the Alps, thoughts of God, 
Shining in places men ne’er trod; 
Gracing the glacier’s terrible brink, 
Bidding the wanderer pause and think; 
Telling that there, far, far from earth 
Moveth the spirit of heavenly birth, 

Who has set in the silence, snow and ice 
The sign of his love, the edelweiss.” 


Mr. Davanant and Gladys are leaving Interlaken to-morrow, 
preceding us to Italy. We may run across them again somewhere 


in our travels. 


VIVIAN. 


The letter was read at luncheon. 

Violet’s face was intensely pale as she laid the poem and 
“flower of ice” beside her plate, and her hand trembled 
visibly as she served the berries; but in no other manner 
did she betray the agitation she felt. 

Audrey watohed her furtively, until she had helped her¬ 
self to strawberries, and made a feint at tasting them. 
Then he observed, abruptly: 

“I have still more recent news of Davanant than Vivi¬ 
an’s. I see by a San Francisco paper that he will bring 
a bride home with him when he returns. By the way, I 
have the paper in my pocket.” 


230 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


He produced, unfolded the journal, and read: 

The news comes to us authentically that Homer Davanant, the 
young philanthropist and distinguished member of San Francis¬ 
co’s fashionable circles, who accompanied his invalid sister-in-law 
abroad last August, will introduce a foreign bride upon his re¬ 
turn to our city, next year. 

Violet wondered afterward how she ever succeeded in 
/ restraining herself from an agonized outcry when she 
heard the announcement read. 

When Audrey entered the veranda that evening he 
found her there. 

% In* the gloaming he could not distinctly see her face, 
but her attitude, as she stood looking toward the eastern 
sky, silvered by the light of the rising moon, bespoke a 
dejection deep and all-absorbing. 

He stood for some moments, his presence undivined by 
her. At last he spoke her name with an accent that had 
in it a peculiar ring. Was it of triumph? 

“Violet?” 

She turned at the sound of his voice and said some¬ 
thing which was only an inarticulate monosyllable, at the 
same time lifting her handkerchief to her eyes, at which 
gesture Audrey approached and laid a hand softly upon 
her arm. 

“Why are you in tears?” he questioned, his warm breath 
fanning her cheek. 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 231 

She turned quickly to him and answered, a smile on her 
face which involved an infinite depth of sadness—such a 
smile as Correggio has given to the countenance of his 
immortal Beatrice Cenci, which to encounter makes one 
“shiver as we would shiver at a specter:” 

“Come over to the hammock, and I will tell you a 
story.” 

There was a chill in the hand which she yielded to him, 
and he heard her stifle a sob, as he led her to the end of 
the veranda. 

They sat down together in the hammock, and there 
ensued a considerable silence, uninterrupted save by the 
rustling of lattice vines or the croaking of toads in fir 
trees. But at last she commenced: 

“Once a violet lay blighted, by the roadside of Grief, 
and it happened there passed that way one with great 
commiseration of heart, who picked up the disconsolate 
flower and replanted it in a soil where the genial sun shone 
and there was a glad environment, which gradually 
brought it back to vitality. When the violet had come to 
enjoy its new and felicitous life one morning its benefactor 
called it ‘Love' and said he wished it for his own, to keep 
forever. So the flower nestled on his heart, half incred¬ 
ulous, for it seemed so strange that a king had chosen 
a lowly little violet to inherit his love. It was blissfully 
happy; but soon there came a serpent to whisper iniqui- 


232 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


tous things, which the violet heard, and fearing its bene¬ 
factor would believe, stole away, preferring death rather 
than to be looked upon with distrust and aversion by him 
who had harbored it in love and confidence. 

“Again the flower lay stricken by the roadside of Grief, 
when it came to pass that others appeared, who had kind 
and pitiful hearts, who bore it to a place where it revived. 
But all the while a canker was eating at its heart. Loving 
eyes looked upon it, tender hands cared for it, but the 
canker remained. One day the wind came and whispered 
to the violet that he who once had cherished it had found 
another flower—found it growing in a foreign clime—and 
that to this he had bestowed his heart, the former heritage 
of the violet. The flower heard, and was bent to the 
ground with sore grief and disconsolation. And—the 
canker at its heart is bleeding, and the pain is cruel! 

“Is it not pitiful that an innocent flower should have 
been brought to suffer thus all because of a serpent's 
calumny?” 

Audrey did not answer her at once. 

“Yes,” he said, at length; “it is—pitiful—pitiful, indeed.” 

“Of course, he must have believed in the perfidy of the 
violet?” said she bitterly. 

“It seems so,” rejoined Audrey—he who had been edu¬ 
cated for a soldier. 

Then, as if under a sudden sting of compunction, he 
added: 





AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


233 


“Possibly not, though.” 

“Oh, yes,” sanguinely replied Violet. “I am sure he 
believed, else he would not have loved another flower so 
soon.” 

At her last words Audrey’s self-control gave way. 

“Oh, Violet, Violet!” he cried, “Homer Davanant never 
loved you! he never loved you, my darling, else he would 
not have gone abroad, as he did, without having found 
you, in spite of everything, and made you his wife. Why, 
dearest one, true love is blind, incredulous! If all the ser¬ 
pents of Inferno came hissing at my heels in calumniation 
of you I would still consider you a pure-white violet. 
You could never hide yourself so completely from me but 
what the love-fire of my soul would guide me to you. 
Above all, I would not suffer an eternity of waters to divide 
me from you if once your lips had made to me a>n avowal 
of love.” 

“Hush!.oh, Audrey, hush!” whispered Violet, trembling 
in every limb. Then she said, sobbingly: 

“It must be so. Homer Davanant never truly loved 
me. Oh! I might have known it—I, a lowly violet, and 
he, a very king!” 

When she went to her room a little later she took a 
folded paper from her bosom. It contained the edelweiss 
blossom Vivian had sent her. 

“Because his hand plucked it,” she said, “I had thought 



234 


AFTER T11E NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


to let it lie next to my heart. But he never loved me, he 
never loved me! and so I will lock the cold, white thing 
away. Oh, my dead idol! it is a fitting flower for the grave 
in which you must lie, forever unforgotten!” 

Meanwhile Audrey Westphal was congratulating him¬ 
self upon the slow but sure advancement which he be¬ 
lieved he was making as the villain in this drama. Hav¬ 
ing inoculated in Violet’s heart the conviction that Dava- 
nant had forgotten her, the rest appeared to him plain sail¬ 
ing. 

“I am playing recklessly,” he told himself, “but I will 
surely win.” 

He wrote immediately to Vivian, thus ending his letter: 

You were right, my loyal sister, not to have disclosed Violet’s 
name to her erstwhile guardian. To have done so would have 
been strictly in violation of her wishes. I trust by the time of 
D.’s return home to have his deposed protegee anchored in 
the safeguard of my own protection. Until then do not lose 
sight of the wish which is hers, to remain in obscurity. 


AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


235 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

There was a new sensation, chronicled by all the leading 
papers. 

A popular society belle had abandoned a home of afflu¬ 
ence and a devoted widowed mother, to wear “altar lilies.”. 
Beautiful Miriam Vernoys, having adopted the white veil 
and the vow of celibacy, would henceforth be dead to the 
world, in whose fashionable firmament she had moved, a 
brilliant satellite. Of course, Vanity Fair was punctual 
with a plausible wherefore in behalf of this sudden and ex¬ 
traordinary movement on the part of Miriam. 

“Did I not predict it?” said that marvelously intuitive 
Dame Grundy. “Did I not prophesy that she would 
enter a convent? And can you not readily divine the rea¬ 
son of her rashness? Why, my dear, the girl has une 
peine de coeur—of course! Did not a certain gentleman 
layish unerring devotions upon her almost from the time 
she was in short frocks? And did not that same bon 
homme recently go abroad and engage himself to some 


236 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


foreign beauty? The case explains itself, you see. Oh, 
yes, it is deplorable—of course, it is deplorable; neverthe¬ 
less one finds it difficult to sympathize with anyone so 
imbecile. The girl is radically mad to have made such a 
sacrifice of herself, simply because of the inconstancy of 
man. There will be little commiseration felt for Miriam. 
But for the dear mother who will have to bear the bitter¬ 
ness and grief of abandonment there must be profound 
and general condolence—certainly! All the world will 
sympathize with Mrs. Vernoys. Poor soul!” 

Audrey Westphal took a paper to Violet, pointing out 
to her the popular paragraph, at which she was deeply 
amazed. 

“Miriam Vernoys, a religieuse?” she cried. “Why, it 
is inconceivable! What could have actuated her to enter 
a nunnery?” 

“Oh,” answered Audrey, with a shrug of his shoulders, 
“people are saying she was disappointed in love.” 

Violet stood bewildered. 

“I knew,” she said, “that Miriam had many suitors, but 
she did not seem to consider any one with especial favor. 
She was beautiful, accomplished, wealthy. Who could 
possibly have disappointed her?” 

“Why,” quietly answered the young cadet, “did you 7 
not know that she favored Homer Davanant above all 
men? For years they have been looked upon as a be¬ 
trothed couple.” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


237 


“Mon Dieu!” crffd Violet. 

She stood a moment affected so by what she had heard 
that the muscles of her face twitched visibly. 

Then she said, a tremor in her voice, as of poignant suf¬ 
fering : 

“I see it all now—everything! That is why she hated 
me with such intensity, and in accordance with her hatred 
her love was measured; to the one she sacrificed her 
woman’s integrity, to the other her very life, as it were. 
Oh, she is to be pitied—I pity her so!” 

Her eyes became moist, but no tears fell. She turned 
her pale face away and stood looking out in the garden, 
where hollyhocks reared flaming monuments to the sea¬ 
son, and the leaves were russet off the passion-vine. 

Audrey watched her sad profile in silence. 

“She never before suspected the motive her ‘serpent* 
had for so persecuting her,” he said to himself. 

The weeks passed. Autumn’s triumphant foliage fell 
to the ground and the leaves were drifted everywhere, 
forming little ashen graves. Over the mesa the prophecy 
of winter appeared, in somber clouds. The weather be¬ 
came inclement, but Santa Barbara was still beautiful with 
her emerald lawns and her gardens, showing brilliant 
chrysanthemums, dahlias, marigolds and carnations. 

Within Casa Blanca there was a cheerful comfort, which 
defied the gruesome rain and winds without. 


238 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Audrey never neglected to have the vases on mantel 
shelf and table filled with the choicest of roses, and there 
was always a fresh bunch of white violets, notwithstand¬ 
ing at that season they were exceedingly rare ana costly. 

Mademoiselle Vavaseur, in grateful acknowledgment 
of his kind thoughtfulness, was seldom without a cluster 
of the snowy blossoms at her throat, and Audrey accepted 
this as a favorable prophecy. 

“Soon, beautiful, fair flowers like those she wore on her 
breast would crown her at the marriage altar.” In a little 
while he would press his suit for her hand again, and in 
such a manner that she could not reject him. He had his 
plans all arranged and was sanguine of their successful 
issue. / 

He would sit watching her at her needle-work, with 
half-closed, mutely adoring eyes, sometimes bending over 
her basket to disentangle a skein of floss, or, rather, to ex¬ 
ert his skill in getting it worse tangled, that he might 
the longer loiter over his pleasant, self-imposed task. 

He had a pleasing tenor voice, and frequently Violet 
accompanied his singing on the piano, to the delight of 
Mrs. Westphal, who had been gradually impressed with 
the knowledge of her son’s infatuation for her young 
companion, but who could scarcely determine as to 
whether the deep-souled girl reciprocated his love, though 
she would have been happy to know that such was the 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 239 

case. Thus time went by uneventfully at Casa Blanca 
until the first of March, when Audrey, without any ex¬ 
pressed motive, suddenly announced his intention of going 
to San Francisco for an indefinite period. 








240 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

One afternoon, about a week after his departure, Violet 
went into the sitting-room to read aloud to Mrs. Westphal, 
according to her daily habit, and found that lady awaiting 
her with a perturbed countenance. Her eyes, red and 
swollen, as from recent weeping, rested on a letter, open 
in her hand. 

“Sit down, my dear,” she said, as Mademoiselle ap¬ 
proached; “not at the reading-table—here, beside me. We 
will keep Lasserre in reserve for a time. I have a subject 
of vital personal importance to discuss with you.” 

She paused a moment, as if to compose her voice, then 
continued: 

“This letter is from my son. In it he has vouchsafed 
to me a confession which I take it, from certain statements 
he makes, will not surprise you. Audrey loves you, Vio¬ 
let.” 

Again Mrs. Westphal paused and her eyes sought 
Mademoiselle’s face questioningly, but they only saw 
there a rather unusual pallor. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


241 


“I had been no true mother,” she went on, “had I failed 
to divine my son’s feelings toward you ere this. For some 
time, dear, I have understood that he loved you,* and felt 
profound gratification at this. I have, however, been un¬ 
able to decide in my mind as to whether you reciprocated 
his attachment. I hope you are not indifferent toward 
Audrey, as a suitor for your hand, Violet. Should 

you-■” Here the voice of the speaker failed her. She 

buried her face in her handkerchief and for a moment wept 
unrestrainedly. Violet felt not a little distressed at her 
emotion. She sat toying awkwardly with a tassel on the 
arm of her chair, striving vainly to frame a sympathetic 
utterance. Presently Mrs. Westphal composed herself 
sufficiently to proceed. 

“Should you reject him, I tremble for the conse¬ 
quences. In his letter he tells me that some months ago 
he made a profession of his love to you, without encour¬ 
agement; but that of late he has believed that you regarded 
him more favorably. If this is true, and you bid him to 
return to Santa Barbara he will do so, otherwise, he de¬ 
clares his intention of enlisting in the army.” 

This, then, was Audrey’s plan: “The pen is mightier 
than the sword,” had been his argument. “I will go to 
San Francisco, and petition through the medium of that 
able little weapon. Mother shall be my executor, and the 
outcome of my suit under such a procedure is a foregone 
conclusion.” 



242 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


He had concluded his letter thus: 

The Government is in need of soldiers for the frontier. Unless 
my adored one accepts me, I shall immediately enlist for service. 
To seek a border life would not be from any chivalrous motive on 
my part, you will readily conceive, mother. I would only hope 
to find on that wild and isolated field the grave of a reckless man 
—which I will surely be without the woman of my heart beside 
me, as an inspiration to live for the achievement of something 
good and lofty. Let Violet decide my fate. A word of encour¬ 
agement from her, and I will return speedily to Santa Barbara. 
Without that word, this must serve as a P. P. C., final and de¬ 
spairing, to you both. From devoted son and worshiping lover 
AUDREY CLYDE WESTPHAL. 

You will concede, dear reader, it was a pathetic and 
impressive plea. You will not wonder that it brought 
tears to a doting mother’s eyes and an anxiety to her 
heart, the pain of which was like the pressure of a sharp 
blade. You will not marvel that when the letter was read 

aloud to her, Violet Vavaseur shuddered and said to her¬ 
self: 

“He would do that? He would abandon a worshiping 
mother, a fond sister, a home and life of opulence to seek 
the reckless, isolated existence of a border-soldier, all on 
my account? Poor Audrey! He shall not make this great 
sacrifice. No, no! He befriended me when I was dying, 
like a veritable beggar, on the highway. He knows my 
heart cannot respond to the sentiment he cherishes toward 
me, as I have told him the story of the ‘blighted violet/ 
But despite that knowledge, he wishes still to take me 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


243 


for his wife! As such, I will be required to move in his 
sphere. People will regard his marriage with me a mes¬ 
alliance. But it cannot be said truly that I am beneath 
him. My l'neage is superior to that of many women who 
hold positions among the aristocracy of California. My 
mother sprang from a noble line of ancestors, and my 
father was the last of a proud and ancient race. But that 
stain upon my name! I would, as Audrey’s wife, be 
brought face to face with the people who were present 
that fateful night at Heartsease; rumors would be certain 
to run current about what passed on that occasion, and 
many would look upon me with eyes of prejudice and 
scorn. Then, Mr. Davanant, with his bride, will return. 
I would have to meet them. Oh, mon Dieu! could I bear 
that? Yes—I could—I would bear it. I will steel my 
heart against all cowardly weakness. I am proud, I am 
pure. Why should I not meet his eyes, and those of all 
the world? 

“How grateful I should feel in possessing such a mag¬ 
nanimous love as Audrey’s. He has said, If all the ser¬ 
pents of Inferno came hissing at my heel in calumniation 
of you, I would still look upon you as a pure white violet.’ ” 

After what seemed to Mrs. Westphal an age-long si¬ 
lence, Violet took her eyes off the interwoven leaves on 
the carpet, and said in a tone of calm resolution: 

“Madam Westphal, bid Audrey return. Say that it is 
my wish.” 


244 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


After this she bent forward and pressed her lips to the 
cheeks that ill-health had shrunken and prematurely 
lined. 

“I will strive to make myself worthy of his love and your 
own, dear,” she said, softly. Theft she took her handker¬ 
chief and gently dried the tears from that mother’s eyes— 
tears whidh she knew were the overflow of a heart’s felic¬ 
ity. 

The message sped swift-winged, and the evening arrived 
upon which Audrey was expected at Casa Blanca. 

Those March nights were chilly, and so a bright wood- 
fire blazed in the parlor where Mrs. Westphal and Violet 
sat, momentarily expecting the carriage to return from 
the steamer-landing. 

A letter having arrived that afternoon, from Vivian, 
Mademoiselle was reading aloud the piquant phrases 
so characteristic of the writer. Vivian’s letter was post¬ 
marked Rome. She said: 

Such a grand time as I am having—just one long gala day I 
Since coming here we have made the acquaintance of some people 
who are connected with the Brazilian legation, and they have 
escorted us everywhere. We have seen such sights and heard 
such sounds as would fill a large volume. But after so many 
able writers have attempted to describe “Sunny Italy,” and failed 
miserably, I shall not go into any details. We must see in order 
to appreciate it this land of sunsets, and blue skies, and dreams. I 
have come to love dear, darling Italy next to my beautiful Cali¬ 
fornia—that, of course, will always take precedence in my heart. 

We heard some grand music last week at St, Peter’s, The 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


245 


singers were called the “Pope’s Angels,” and I never heard 
sweeter voices. Of course, we were ambitious to see His Holi¬ 
ness, and, as luck would have it, one of our party, a count, and, 
let me whisper it (a professed slave of your humble servant), hap¬ 
pened to have an uncle at the Vatican, through whose influence 
we not only saw, but had a private audience with Pope Leo, 
which is more than a great many have who come from the other 
side of the world, especially to attend the Lenten services here. 

Now, a little in reference to the count. I have had the pleas¬ 
ure of refusing his hand and fortune. I am going to prove that 
the reputation American women have over here for “jumping at 
titles” is not altogether infallible. No wonder the poor chappie 
can’t realize that I am in earnest when I persist in saying “no” 
to his importunities. Pauvre garcon! He writes to me every 
day, in French, as he “do not very well comprehend ze English,” 
and he swears to me, by all the saints, that he never has loved 
and never will love any one but my very self. I am sorry for the 
count, who has done so much to render my stay in Rome one 
of perpetual delight, and since through his graciousness I have 
seen many sights that tourists seldom see, who are not fortunate 
enough to have “a friend at court.” 

We expect to quit Rome in a few days. After Venice we go 
to the south of France, just to say our prayers to our Lady of 
Lourdes at the temple of Massabielle, in the Pyrenees. 

I am in receipt of a recent letter from Gladys Davanant. They 
are at Genoa. Her health is steadily improving, but she says 
that she is weary of travel. I presume by this that they will be 
returning home ere long. The thought of that makes me home¬ 
sick, but I presume it will be May ere we set our faces in the 
direction of Thurston and all my loved ones. Adieu. 

VIVIAN. 

Scarcely had Violet concluded the reading of the letter 
when the sound of carriage wheels were heard without. 

At the signal of Audrey’s arrival a visible tremor seized 

her. 


246 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Sl)e rose hastily and crossed the room to the piano, 
where she began mechanically to arrange some music. 

Mrs. Westphal went into the hall to meet her son, and 
Violet heard the affectionate greeting which Audrey gave 
her; then she realized that he had entered the parlor. 

They were alone together. 

She turned from the piano and her eyes met his, but 
without a light responsive to that one of soulful love. 

Her face was white as Hebe’s, on the pedestal near her, 
and almost void of expression. Her lips parted with brief 
words of greeting: 

“Audrey, you have come.” 

“I have come—yes!” 

Then, like a sudden eclipse, the light in the room seemed 
to go out, leaving them in chaos. 

She felt his arms passionately clasping her. She felt 
his lips pressing hers in a kiss, long and suffocating—how 
suffocating! In a far-off way she heard his words sound¬ 
ing with a triumphant vibration: 

“Violet, darling, you called me back. I have come 
to you, my very, very own, forever! I have come!” 

She shuddered involuntarily in his embrace, and when 
he released her presently to slip the betrothal ring upon 
her finger, she lifted her eyes, heavily charged with tears, 
to his face, and said: 

“Oh! Audrey, I am such a poor little recompense. I 
am like N 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


the painting of a sorrow, 
A face without a heart; 


248 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


/ 


CHAPTER XXX. 

It was decided that the marriage should transpire about 
the time of Santa Barbara’s annual fiesta, the ensuing 
month. Already preparations had begun for the celebra¬ 
tion, which promised to eclipse in splendor the Bataille 
des Fleurs of Nice or the carnival of New Orleans. There 
would be a grand floral display at the pavilion,, and a 
street pageant, which to duplicate at the East would cost 
a fortune, but which in Flora’s adopted land would only 
require the artistic faculty of man apropos of arrange¬ 
ment. 

In accordance with an undertaking than which none 
could better demonstrate His divine and glorious power, 
the Great Ruler caused all the land to glow with perfect 
and luxurious bloom. 

In cultured gardens there were myriads of splendid 
roses, hedges of calla-lilies, and lattices heavily draped 
with purple wisteria and passion flowers, which scarlet 
stars lit the air with their love-fire. Out on the hill-sides, 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


249 


nestling in dell and shady canyon, the Mariposa lily grew 
beside the stately Matilipa tulip, and that beautiful en¬ 
sign-flower of the “State of Gold/’ the eschscholtzia, 
burned in striking contrast with bordea, baby-blue-eye, 
Indian pink, lark-spur and hosts of other lovely blossoms. 

The days now seemed to Violet to take unto themselves 
wings, so swiftly did they pass. One afternoon Audrey 
sought her in the garden, where she sat among the lilacs 
and Castilian roses, idly dreaming over her embroidery. 

He approached her gaily in the sunlight. 

“Violet, come to the stables with me,” he said. “I have 
something I wish to show you.” 

Without hesitation Mademoiselle rose and accompanied 
him across the court, and through the arbor, mantled in 
Lady Bariksia roses and jessamine. 

What she saw upon arriving at the barn was a mag¬ 
nificent mare, whose wavy silken mane and tail almost 
swept the ground. She clasped her hands together in ad¬ 
miration of the quadruped, and exclaimed: 

“Where in the world did you get such a beauty, Au¬ 
drey?” 

“She arrived from Palo Alto this morning. One of 
Stanford’s thoroughbreds, and a wadding present to you, 
Violet,” he told her. “I am going to. drive her at the 
Flower Carnival, and I wish you to grace my chariot on 
that occasion. It will be just two days previous to our 
wedding, you know.” 


250 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


“But how I am to thank you for such a splendid gift, 
I do not know. I am so poor at words,” she answered him. 
“Tell me,” she added hastily, “what you will call the 
mare?” 

“You are to select the name yourself, my love,” said 
Audrey. 

“Then let us christen her Snowdown. She is so immac¬ 
ulately white.” 

“What flower shall you represent in the parade?” Violet 
questioned as they returned toward the house. 

“Can you not guess?” asked Audrey, smiling into her 
eyes. 

Violet hesitated, and her face was crossed by a swift 
pallor. 

“Orange-blossoms?” she ventured presently. 

“No,” he said, failing to note the change in her. “White 
violets.” 

\She smiled that sad, unfathomable smile, which made 
her resemble Beatrice Cenci. 

“How kind of you,” she said, meeting his adoring 
glance. 

“And you—let us sit down here in the arbor. I like the 
odor of these roses, and the shade is cool and the birds 
are building; I love to watch them—and you are to wear 
something white and foamy—everything must be pure 
white, even to your parasol.” 




. 






AFTER THE NIGHT HASJ PASSED. 251 

And, speaking thus, Audrey bent over and touched his 
lips reverently to her forehead. “Oh! my darling/’ he 
whispered passionately, “how lovely you will look—your¬ 
self, a very queen of violets!” 

On the day preceding the commencement of the fiesta 
Mademoiselle Vavaseur was overtaken by a mood of 
deep melancholy, which she vainly strove to overcome 
by many repetitions of her rosary, in the retirement of her 
room. 

Weighed down by this excessive soul-depression almost 
to the verge of hysterics, she at length determined to go 
at dusk to the ancient parochial church in the northern 
suburbs of the town, there to seek the surcease which, 
in her bed-chamber, she had prayed for in vain. 

Immediately after tea she set forth upon her clandestine 
mission, approaching the white walls of the sanctuary, 
whose surmounting crucifix has pointed steadily heaven¬ 
ward for more than a century, in the shadows of the early 
twilight. 

She entered the holy place, filled with a humility that 
prompted her to kneel for some moments upon the chapel 
threshold, before approaching the altar, whose many 
lighted tapers burned dimly and whose annunciation lilies, 
arranged at the feet of the Blessed Virgin, gave forth a 
subtile incense. 

Save for the pale halo that encompassed the altar, the 


252 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


chapel was in shadow, and as the young supplicant moved 
softly up the aisle, her pure-white vestment shone in 
strange contrast with the gloom. 

As she drew near the chancel the glimmer of the candles 
fell upon her features, whose spiritual beauty made them 
not unlike those of the blessed saint whose commiserating 
eyes rested upon her as she knelt, making the sign of the 
cross upon her breast 

Over in an obscure part of the sanctuary, before the 
shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an aged priest knelt 
at prayer, but his words were mere whispers, and they 
did not reach the ear of Violet. Her attitude was motion¬ 
less as that of a statue; her dark, beseeching eyes were 
steadily fixed upward, toward that countenance, with its 
maternal wisdom, its child-like innocence and virginal 
purity; her hands were crossed over her bosom; her lips 
murmured in whispered words of supplication, which 
were punctuated by the dropping of tears upon the floor. 

“Holy Mother,” she prayed, “let me feel thine alleviating 
presence! Come, and, by the grace of our Father, who 
art in heaven, pluck out this hot burden from within me! 
Thou knowest what it is weighting down my soul, Ave 
Maria, and oh, I do devoutly beseech thee, relieve me of 
the disorder! Let me forget my unrequited love. To bear 
it is sin, dishonor. Let me be purged of it! O Santa 
Maria, most Holy Virgin, help me!” 






































































AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 253 

As her lips finally ceased to move, one after another 
convulsive sob shook her frame, gradually waxed audible, 
and echoed through the chapel with such exaggerated 
sound that Violet grew afraid, lest they be heard by some 
of the monks in the adjacent monastery. She grasped 
her throat to stifle the violent throes, and started to rise, 
when suddenly there fell upon her ear a voice, strangely 
soft and sweet, saying: 

“What troublest thee so sorely, beloved?” 




l 


256 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Wondering she gazed around, to behold in the semi- 
darkness near her one who wore the somber vestments 
of a priest. 

“Arise, and be not afraid, daughter,” again spoke the 
voice of ineffable tenderness. And approaching, the padre 
extended an infirm hand, assisting the young girl to her 
feet. He led her to a seat in front of the altar, sinking 
upon which, Violet kept her eyes steadily fixed on his aged 
countenance, impressed with its familiarity, yet unable 
to remember where she had seen it before. 

“Ah, yes, it recurs to me now, Father,” she said, sud¬ 
denly. “We passed each other one day last summer in the 
mission church of Carmelo. You had brief converse with 
the gentleman who accompanied me. On that day I lost 
an amulet which I religiously prized.” 

As she finished speaking she saw the priest's palsied 
hand go to his face in a quick, agitated gesture, and the 
fingers fluttering over his mouth, half smothered a low 
cry: 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


257 


“God!” 

Violet decided that his extreme nervousness was due 
to physical suffering. 

“O child,” he presently observed, his eyes bent eagerly 
upon her countenance, “I cannot discern what thy face 
is like. Mine eye-sight almost fails me. But memory 
serves me well, despite. The meeting of which thou 
speakest is vivid in my mind. And thou sayest that upon 
that summer day thou didst lose a sacred amulet?” 

Yes, Father, a crucifix, which originally belonged to 
Gasper de Zuniga, Count of Monte Rey, and noble viceroy 
of Mexico. I treasured the relic with holy love, as it was 
a bequest from my departed mother.” 

Again the padre's hand fluttered to his mouth, to 
smother an exclamation. Then, after a brief silence, he 
sank upon the bench, beside Violet, and his voice sounded 
with an increased tremor as he said : 

“What, beloved, was thy mother's name?” 

“Mer maiden name was Juana Escalante. My father's 
name was Mario Vavaseujr. They were traveling in Mex¬ 
ico in the early days of their union, when the cross of De 
Zuniga was bestowed upon my mother by a priest of the 
Catholic church at Colima. Padre Baptiste called it an 
amulet of grace, and begged my mother that when she 
come to die she would bequeath it to the one nearest 
her in bond of blood. Fifteen months ago she bound 


258 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


the amulet about my neck with her parting benediction, 
and I wore it constantly up to the day on which it was 
lost. Oh, I have lamented it more than I can tell you, 
Father.” 

“This is the ordination of the Supreme God,” murmured 
the priest audibly. 

Then Violet saw him thrust a hand hastily inside his 
vestment, toward his heart. She grew tremulous with 
sudden alarm. 

“What could possibly be the matter with the aged 
father? We he going to expire then and there, in the 
still, dark sanctuary, with no one near him save herself?” 

She partly rose from the seat at such a thought, a dread 
chill creeping over her. Then—what was that the priest 
was holding aloof in the pale light, between them? 

She gazed upon the object with spellbound eyes. 

“I say, beloved, it is the ordination of the Supreme God,” 
she heard the padre repeating presently. “I discovered 
this, thy precious crucifix, in the chapel of Carmelo upon 
that day, immediately after passing thee. Seest thou!” 

“Father, my amulet? my blessed, beloved and long- 
mourned treasure—found? Ah, merci, merci!” 

Grasping the trophy from his yielding hand, she pressed 
it between her palms, and laid her cheek against them in 
an ecstasy of surprise and gratitude too deep for utter¬ 
ance. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


259 


“And of a surety, daughter,” pursued the priest, “the 
same divine power that willed me the finding of thy cruci¬ 
fix guided us to our meeting here to-night, after my vain 
search of months” 

Violet lifted her head quickly and gazed at the speaker 
in new bewilderment. 

“After your vain search of months, Father?” she re¬ 
peated. “I do not understand ” 

“I am Padre Baptiste, the same who gave to thy gentle 
mother the cross of De Zuniga twenty years ago, at Co¬ 
lima.” 

“Oh, heavenly providence!” cried Violet. “You are 
Padre Baptiste, the memory of whom my mother cher¬ 
ished so reverently? whose hand” (gazing at him through 
a mist of tears) “blessed the father whom I never saw?” 

“Yes, beloved,” said the priest, “and ere that same hand 
blesseth thee, let me give thee tidings that thou art heiress 
to a splendid fortune. Thy mother’s maiden aunt, Dolores 
Escalante, as I take it thou art aware, repudiated her niece 
and sole relative at the time of her union with thy father. 
To her vow Dona Dolores remained steadfast through 
many years. But at last infirm health came upon her, and 
after a protracted state of invalidism her heart relented 
toward Juana. In 'her dying moments she summoned me. 
She had made a new will, bequeathing her entire fortune, 
aside' from a few hundred dollars for the church, to her 


260 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


niece, Juana, or in the contingency of her death, to her 
surviving progeny. The real estate, bonds, moneys, jew¬ 
elry aggregate a fortune any queen might well envy, for 
Dolores Escalante was a shrewd woman and thrifty. 

“I promised that after her death I would seek her 
niece in California and apprise her of her inheritance. For 
months I searched unceasingly for Juana and Mario, until 
at last I was taken by two Sisters of Charity to their graves 
at Mount Calvary, in San Francisco. These nuns, who 
were present at the death of the widow, informed me of a 
surviving child, named Violet, who became the charge 
of a philanthropic gentleman whose guardianship she left 
after some months, going away mysteriously, none knew 
whither. For many days I searched in San Francisco 
without gaining any clew of the missing girl. Then, being 
summoned to Santa Barbara, to assist in the Easter serv¬ 
ices at the church, I came, intending to return to the city 
But here art thou—the very Violet I have been so long 
and prayerfully seeking. The amulet has led to thine 
identity. Such is the grace thereof; for hadst thou not 
spoken of the loss of thy crucifix, I would have passed 
thee by, after a word of comfort, and thou in all likelihood 
would have continued on, indefinitely, ignorant of thine 
inheritance and—other felicitous truths.” 

Violet scarcely heard the words with which the priest 
concluded his speech. / 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED, 


261 


She sat, silent, moved by varied conflicting emotions. 
That she, who from early childhood had been accustomed 
to regard money as that difficult necessity which went for 
a license to live in a frugal fashion—in exchange for a piece 
of fine needle-work, or for a valued heirloom, wherewith 
to buy at last a shroud for the one whose hands had 
wrought the handkerchief “ordered by a merchant’s cus¬ 
tomer”—whose tears of bitterness had fallen and sunk 
into the lily-leaves, to be washed and ironed out, ere it 
went to the shop—that she herself was now heiress to 
such a fortune as the priest had accounted, seemed to her 
incredible—fabulous. 

When she could at last speak with composure she nar¬ 
rated to Padre Baptiste all that she could remember of 
her life, up to the time she had gone to live with the Dav- 
anants. 

“It was as I feared, then,” the priest observed when 
she had finished. “Thy father contracted the fever from 
which he died whilst lingering in the humid forests of 
Vera Cruz. His palm was torrid with the insidious poi¬ 
son when I held it in bidding him farewell. But he and 
the gentle Juana both deprecated the idea of brooding 
illness. In their happiness they could not see the Dark 
Angel pursuing them. 

“And, now, beloved, tell me where thou art abiding and 
why thou didst seek the chapel to-night, so sorely troubled 




ZZ2 AFTEK THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

at heart. Do not fear to confess thy grievances to me, 
who blessed thy mother at thy conception.” 

“I abide with kind friends, Father Baptiste. I sought 
the chapel to pray deliverance from a sorrow that has 
long oppressed me. It is that of unrequited love. The 
one to whom I was briefly betrothed is at present abroad, 
and will return, wedded to another. The papers have 
announced it.” 

“Ah! but the papers, daughter, are erroneous ofttimes. 
Herein they have grossly erred. Thy lover is loyal to 
thee,” spoke Padre Baptiste. 

A wild thrill vibrated along Violet’s veins as she heard 
the priest’s low-spoken, confident words—a thrill which 
struck her heart with such force that it seemed to collapse 
and cease beating utterly. 

Her hands grew icy; moisture started from her temples 
and chilled upon them. 

“Ah! dear God,” she inly prayed, “grant me strength 
to bear this ecstasy.” 

By an effort she conquered the weakening spell, and 
when the blood rushed back to her face she waited until 
the throbbing of throat and lips had subsided a little; then 
she asked: 

“Father, this is strange. From what source did you 
derive your information.” 

“I can but assure thee, daughter,” the priest replied, 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED, 


263 


“that my authority is wholly reliable. Return to this 
chapel two nights hence and thou wilt meet with two 
godly women, Sisters Agnes and Celia, whom thou know- 
est, and who alone are entitled to make unto thee further 
disclosures regarding this affair. God’s love and protec¬ 
tion rest with thee until then. And now, adios, beloved.” 

Violet seemed to float, rather than to walk, back to 
Casa Blanca, to such a height did her happiness at what 
she had heard exalt her. 

She was like one under the influence of some inebriating 
drug, and her soul vibrated with the words: 

“Oh, love, my only love! misjudged, abandoned, ex¬ 
iled, but still loving me!” 

She tripped up the veranda steps, senseless to that de¬ 
scent as one walking in sleep—senseless to everything save 
her soul’s elation, until suddenly some one touched her 
and she heard her name spoken with a reproachful accent. 

Turning, she saw Audrey. 

He stood by the passion vines, regarding her with seri-~ 
ous, rebuking eyes. 

“How could you go wandering alone in the night, 
Violet, and our wedding day less than a week remote?” 
he asked in an injured tone. “You have been gone two 
hours. I missed you right after tea.” 

She could not answer him. Her face looked ghastly in 
the moonlight; her eyes half closed themselves and grew 


254 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


dull from the anguish sucking at her heartstrings; his 
words revolved around and around in her brain. She 
had an inclination to laugh, then to cry. Was she going 
mad? 

Audrey heard the hysterical laugh which at length 
broke from her. Then he tried to stay her, as with a 
suppressed sob she brushed quickly past him and entered 
the house. 

He stood in the veranda alone, deeply puzzled, half 
angered at her strange demeanor. 

“Ah, I have it,” he at last concluded. “She has been 
frightened by some carousing masquerader. The streets 
are full of such preliminary to the carnival.” 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


265 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Aurora’s eyelids never unclosed upon a fairer spectacle 
than that which Santa Barbara, embowered in a million 
classified and odorous blossoms, presented on her prin¬ 
cipal fete day. 

The sea, blue as a sapphire, was flecked with vessels 
which flaunted to the breeze their pennants of varied and 
brilliant colors. The smooth emerald slopes of the mesa 
shone in lovely contrast with the deep royal purple of the 
northern mountains, whose summits were touched and 
glorified by the sunlight. 

The brave Spaniards who voyaged to the Pacific long 
years ago, as their ships rode into the tranquil waters of 
Santa Barbara bay, then involved in obscurity, the ad¬ 
jacent valley, with its columns of white cacti, its spread¬ 
ing palms and myriads of brilliant wild-flowers, presented 
a picture the wondrous natural beauty of which made 
indelible impress on their souls. Likewise, the hundreds 
of visitors who flocked into the lovely, cultured city by 


266 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

the sea to witness its fiesta, stood amazed at the perfection, 
diversity and wonderful abundance of flowers which the 
husbandry of man had produced and which added per¬ 
fection to a natural paradise. 

“This is the garden of the gods!” they cried. The prin¬ 
cipal streets were flanked by palm and evergreen trees, 
interspersed with fish-net draperies, thickly bestrewn with 
roses. The walls of buildings were entirely hidden be¬ 
neath masses of bloom and greenery, streamers of gay- 
colored bunting floated everywhere, while, above all, 
high in the sweet blue of heaven, the heraldic banner of 
“Our Country” unfurled its beautiful stars and stripes. 
At the pavilion there was a constant inpouring multitude, 
and the. floral wealth presented everywhere excited a per¬ 
petual chorus of bewildered cries. 

“The street pageant cannot possibly surpass this in love¬ 
liness!” exclaimed a young enthusiast from the East. 

“You will see,” replied her escort, a native Californian. 
“I would, however, advise you to reserve some of your ad¬ 
jectives for this afternoon’s display. When you have had 
enough of Baron de Bon Leton roses I wish to show you 
a painting, in flowers: 

“Here it is—a clever illustration of our Montecito val¬ 
ley, as it appeared a hundred years ago. By the way, 
Montecito means ‘little forest/ Down the valley in the 
perspective we see the mammoth grape-vine, celebrated 




AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 267 

the world over, not for the quality of its fruit, which is 
small and insipid, but on account of its gigantic dimen¬ 
sions. Beneath its wide shade a Mexican is enjoying his 
mid-day siesta, a forgotten guitar beside him, and that 
is his wife, laboring at the wash-tub, apart from him under 
the vine. Nearer the foreground a vaquero is leisurely 
driving his cows to pasture, while behind them a lazy 
burro swaggers along, laden with provisions for the 
mountain camp. On the hill-slope a man is working with 
a yoke of oxen and a primitive plow, and that is his house, 
before which sits an Indian woman, with a black serape 
over her head. Those red festoons on the walls are chili- 
peppers, supposedly drying in the sun. 

“Now let us pass on to another ward, and I will show 
you a faithful representation of the old bells in the mission 
church garden: 

“That top one is designed of niphetos*roses, with a 
cross of red geraniums on the side. The other two are 
of Jacqueminot roses, with tongues of the wild bordea; 
the bell on the lower arch is in cloth-of-gold roses, and 
upon the bench beneath lies the broken fourth bell, just 
as you can see it to-day in the old parochial garden; it is 
also formed of cloth-of-gold roses, while the bench itself 
is composed of the beautiful La Marc creation. 

“Yes, those are all roses in that booth—forty different 
kinds, and all botanically named. Lcannot now enumer- 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


ate them, as that was the first bugle call. The parade 
will soon commence. We will hasten to the tribunes and 
get seats.” 

State street, which runs, straight and smoothly con¬ 
creted, from the northern suburbs of the town to the gray 
sea, was thronged with four and six-in-bands, laudaus, 
rockaways and surreys, all of which were smothered, in 
flowers and taking places in the great line. 

At last the grand marshal of the day and his aids had 
the procession in order, and slowly it commenced to move 
past the tribunes. 

As it advanced between the divided multitudes there 
went up a succession of loud cheers. Following the grand 
officers, all of whom were mounted upon gaily capari¬ 
soned, champing steeds, came innumerable floats, repre¬ 
senting noted historical subjects from that of the landing 
of Columbus up to the present decade. 

Singing a languishing song in their native tongue, to 
which the guitar made soft accompaniment, some Cas¬ 
tilian maidens laughingly tossed their cascarones toward 
the tribunes, which favors broke, scattering amid the 
Crowd a shower of prismatic dust. 

The merry excitement which followed this onslaught 
provoked the commencement of the Battle of Flowers. 

The carnival was at its height. 

Volley after volley of wild laughter arose, and as the 


AFTER THE NIGHT ilAS PASSED. 


269 


spectators caught at the fragrant missiles hurled at them 
they forgot to identify the individual entrees in the pro¬ 
cession, which seemed interminable. 

They threw back the compliments to their assailants, 
and the merry war waxed wild. 

Society belles abandoned their dignity and caught and 
threw boquets until their hats were askew and their faces 
flushed from the exhilarating sport. “Chappies” had their 
eye-glasses broken in striving to dodge the nosegays aimed 
at them, and were constrained to laugh at their misad¬ 
ventures. 

The air was brilliant with flying flowers of every de¬ 
scription and louder, wilder grew the din of shout and 
laughter. An equipage passed, covered with marigolds, a 
compact mass of them; its two beautiful occupants were 
brunettes, attired in gowns corresponding in hue with 
the flower they represented. An American eagle poised 
above them, holding in his beak long yellow ribbons, at¬ 
tached to a pair of magnificent jet-black horses. 

Then came Robin Hood and his “merrie men,” the lat¬ 
ter carrying bows and quivers full of arrows tipped with 
roses, which were discharged at the audience. The cheek 
of a fair maiden was brushed by one, but she forgot to 
scream. Her eyes were fixed interestedly toward an ad¬ 
vancing carriage, shaped like a convoluted shell, and 
glorious in a foam of white violets. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


270 

“Who is that beautiful girl? Look, mamma!” she cried, 
“in the equipage of white violets.” 

“A stranger to me,” was the reply. 

“Isn’t she, indeed, beautiful?” remarked another. “How 
queenly and self-possessed.” “How supremely indifferent 
to the crowd she appears.” “Isn’t their turnout splendid 
—so exquisitely simple, you know.” “A million white vio¬ 
lets, and she a very goddess amidst them.” “All, all pure- 
white, even to the horse—a magnificent horse.” 

One after another caught up the strain until “white 
violets” ran all along the tribunes. The beauty of the 
young girl who graced the chariot caused many to hush 
their merriment to gaze upon her entranced. 

Violet wore a dress of snowy mull, and she carried a 
parasol of white lace, in the soft meshes of which were 
sunk clusters of foamy violets, with a few of their dark- 
green leaves; her black hair hung in rich, curling masses 
almost to her waist, in striking contrast with all her spot¬ 
less surroundings. Her face, with its delicate, patrician 
features, was slightly flushed, and there was a luster in 
her sad eyes, which made them appear unusually dark and 
beautiful. 

Their carriage moved on and she glanced indifferently 
upon the throngs to the right and left, while Audrey, 
who sat beside her, fautlessly attired in white flannel, and 
looking more than ever like an Athenian god, was kept 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


271 


busy lifting his hat to friends who had come from the city 
to witness the parade. 

“How happy he appears,” thought Violet, “and how 
incomparably wPetched am I! To-night I am to meet 
Sisters Agnes and Celia at the church. But whatever 
they may have to reveal to me can matter little now. My 
fate is indissolubly sealed. The day after to-morrow I am 
to become the wife of Au-Oh! heaven help me!” 

Audrey heard the agitated cry which abruptly broke 
from Violet. Turning, he saw her face was as livid as the 
flowers about her. Her lips were apart, her eyes set with 
a wild expression straightway before her. 

“My love, my love, what is it?” he questioned, deeply 
alarmed. 

She remained rigid as a statue, but he caught the words 
framed by her white lips: 

“Look to your right—directly to your right!” 

He turned his eyes in the direction signified. 

“I do not see—sister Vivian! How comes it she is— 
God!” 

There was another poignant cry. Then in the mad 
whirl of his senses it seemed to Audrey that he gazed 
from abysmal depths upward to where stood Violet—be¬ 
yond his reach forever! 


272 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Davanant sat amid the throng, his face rigid as chiseled 
stone, his eyes fixed steadily toward the carriage of “white 
violets” and emitting a fire which burned its way to Au¬ 
drey Westphal’s heart, causing that organ to quiver, as 
though seared by a red-hot iron, and then stand still. 
Violet, having met those eyes for one brief instant, felt 
a wild thrill rush through her, as though she had touched 
an electric battery. Then all feeling seemed to leave her. 
She sat like one turned to stone, while Audrey, beside her, 
was scarcely less immobile. 

“Traitor!”' 

The air seemed vibrant with the one condemning word. 

Vaguely he heard a voice, crying to him from the trib¬ 
unes: 

“Audrey! Audrey, my brother!” 

He made no response to Vivian’s appealing cry. He 
manifested no sign whatever that he had seen her. His 
only thought was to get out of that mocking cavalcade. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


273 


But a moment ago it had all seemed so beautiful to him. 
Now it was a horrible farce, a nightmare, a death-dance! 

Davanant watched their carriage advance slowly up the 
line toward the end of the tribunes, until it was hidden 
from view by the equipages that followed. Then with a 
few hurriedly spoken words to his sister-in-law, he rose 
and pushed his way through the crowd with a demeanor 
so wild that people turned to gaze wonderingly after him. 

The temperature of the day was mild, and yet great 
beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, while his tem¬ 
ples were swollen almost, it seemed, to bursting. He 
clutched his hands as he went until the nails thereof made 
incisions in his palms. 

“God!” he cried, free from the multitude at last, “let 
me breathe! let me think!” 

But the noises from the tribunes pursued him, and 
craving to get away to some remote and silent spot, where 
he might hope to quiet his mind from that loud, whirring 
sensation—a sensation which he believed was a forerun¬ 
ner of madness—he walked rapidly from the town, to¬ 
ward the forest of Montecito. 

Gaining the woods at length, he sat down on tfie trunk 
of a fallen tree, near the roadside, and, with one great sob, 
which came from a bursting heart, buried his face in his 
hands. 

For a long time he remained motionless, without utter¬ 
ing another sound. 




274 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

He was recalling that night at the club, previous to his 
going abroad, when he had told Audrey Westphal of his 
love for Mademoiselle Vavaseur. The young cadet had 
heard him say upon that occasion that he would give 
his whole fortune to recover his lost betrothed—he had 
heard this and yet, conscious all the while of the girl’s 
whereabouts, he had answered not a word. Oh, it was 
monstrous, it was dastardly, it was worse than heinous! 
And this was the girl of whom Vivian had spoken—whom 
he had heard called “my sister-in-law, that is to be.” 

The two American parties had met again incidentally 
at Liverpool and had journeyed across the Atlantic home¬ 
ward together, during which season of intimate compan¬ 
ionship Davanant had frequently heard Vivian speak of 
“the girl whom Audrey expects to marry,” but she had 
never said anything that might have led him to surmise 
the true identity of that girl. 

He had once said to her: 

“I have never seen your prospective sister-in-law, 
have I?” ^ 

And Vivian had answered with clever adroitness: 

“She only came to us just before I started abroad, to act 
in the capacity of companion to mamma during my ab¬ 
sence. I think it was a case of love at first sight,” she 
added, “as even before I left home Audrey confided to 
me the state of his heart, and said that he might possibly 



AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


275 


be married before my return, and judging from his last 
letter I rather expect to find him a happy benedict. Come 
to Santa Barbara with me, you and Gladys, and I will 
make you acquainted with his enchantress, can’t you?” 

“No, thanks, Vivian,” he had answered. “There will 
be other opportunities. I am eager to get back to San 
Francisco, and we will take the quickest train from New 
York over the nearest route. We’ll reach California a 
day at least ahead of you.” 

Arriving in San Francisco he had repaired directly to 
the convent, to learn from the Sisters Agnes and Celia 
if any news had been received of his lost Violet. 

“She is found!” had been the joyous tidings with which 
they had greeted him. “She is in Santa Barbara. The 
message has just arrived. We are to meet her at the 
church there, by appointment, to-morrow night. We 
start south at once. Come with us.” 

And this was the sequel to all his joyous anticipations! 

“The wretch has acted out his role very cleverly,” 
thought Davanant, as he sat there on the fallen tree, in 
bitter retrospection. “I understand everything now. He 
is the author of those personals regarding my engage¬ 
ment to a European belle, which appeared in the leading 
San Francisco papers. The consummate liar and thief! 
He caused them to be published in aid of his cause. I 
wonder how Violet happened to go to them. I wonder 


276 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


if she returns that villain’s love. Can she have so com¬ 
pletely forgotten that beautiful, brief summer at Hearts¬ 
ease? O Violet, Violet! the one real love of my life, is it 
possible you have forgotten me so soon?” ^ 

Padre Baptiste had told him, upon their arrival in 
Santa Barbara, at noon that day, that he had neglected to 
ask Violet’s address, and that it would be necessary for 
him to wait until evening, when his betrothed would visit 
the chapel, to meet the nuns, according to an appointment 
he had arranged. 

“The sisters will prepare Violet for the meeting with 
thee, my son,” the priest had added. “Their mission will 
be of more importance than I had anticipated. Thou 
earnest upon the scene quite unexpectedly. But it is well 
so. Abide thee patiently until night, then come to the. 
church.” 

And he had taken Gladys to the tribunes, there to 
kill time, there to meet Vivian (she whom he now sus¬ 
pected of being accomplice with her brother in a dastardly 
plot against him), to see Violet Vavaseur riding beside 
Audrey Westphal in the parade, and to be told by Vivian 
that— 

“Yes, that is Violet Vavaseur. So you know her. Au¬ 
drey will lead her to the marriage altar day after to-mor¬ 
row. I just waited home after getting in, long enough to 
be told so by mamma. Why, what is the matter? What 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


277 


is the matter with Mr. Davanant, Gladys, and yourself, 
too? Your faces'are as white as my roses. You recognize 
in Mademoiselle Vavaseur a former acquaintance. What 
of that?” 

Davanant had not waited to hear more. He had rushed 
away, and here he sat, in the quiet woods of Montecito, 
his blood boiling hot with a mad desire to—murder! 

Suddenly a wild, heart-broken cry awoke in the silent 
forest, causing the birds to hush their joyous song, and 
tremble, frightened in the trees. 

The little creatures looked down wonderingly upon the 
man sitting on the dead limb sobbing, sobbing so that 
his great, strong frame was convulsed with the pitiful 
throes. Hark! 

Suddenly Davanant looked up. 

Some one was galloping on horseback down the coun¬ 
try road, swiftly toward him. 

He averted his tear-stained face, and when the horse¬ 
man had passed he turned mechanically and looked after 
him. 

Then suddenly he started to his feet with a low, guttural 
cry. 

The rider who had just passed was Audrey Westphal! 

Convinced, beyond a doubt, of his identity, Davanant 
was seized with a new emotion. Every drop of blood in 
his body seemed to leap to his face. His eyes blazed with 


278 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


the green and reddish glare of hatred. He started upon 
a mad run in the direction the young cadet had taken, 
following the detours of the road, suddenly to appear 
from among the trees, face to face with his rival. 

“Halt!” Davanant commanded. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


279 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Mrs. Westphal, whose invalidism prevented her at¬ 
tendance at the parade, had been surprised shortly after 
Audrey and Violet left Casa Blanca, by the arrival of her 
daughter, who had not been expected uutil a month later. 

“Mamma,” she explained, “Thurston wrote asking me 
to reserve some sights over there for our wedding tour 
next year, so after doing Italy I begged madame to bring 
me home. 

“Mr. Davanant and his sister-in-law were our compan¬ 
ions de voyage as far as New York. I am just in time for 
what, chere mere? the wedding! Audrey and Violet’s? 
Day after to-morrow? Oh, how perfectly delightful! 
Where is Violet? She must show me her trousseau. In 
the parade with Audrey? White violets? How lovely! 
Have I time to get to the tribunes before it is all over? It 
would be such fun to salute them from the crowd. Won’t 
they be surprised, though, to see me? There is a carriage, 
labeled ‘for the tribunes.’ I will take it. By-bv, dearest.” 



280 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


Vivian was fortunate in securing a seat, and who should 
she crush against in passing to it but Mr. Davanant and 
Gladys? 

“Why!” she cried. “So you decided to come down, for 
the fiesta? Thought you were awfully pressed for time, 
Mr. Davanant?” 

“So I was, Vivian. It happens that 

“my business in this state 
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna.” 

“How nice. I just arrived a few moments ago, and 
hastened to the tribunes to get a glimpse of Audrey. He 
and his betrothed are in the parade. They are represent¬ 
ing ‘white violets/ and have but one horse—a pure-white 
one, to match. There come the single entrees now. Theirs 
must be among them.” And Vivian had strained her eyes 
intently toward the passing equipages, while her com¬ 
panions also strove with interest to catch sight of the 
young cadet and his fiancee. 

“Oh, there they are—look! Ain’t they perfectly sweet.?” 
Vivian suddenly cried out, and as the others followed her 
glance both held their breath in unspeakable amazement. 

“Why, Homer,” Mrs. Davanant exclaimed, when she 
could command her voice, “how like Violet Vavaseur that 
girl is!” 

Davanant did not answer her. His breath came fast; 
his eyes were fixed and dilated, His expression was like 
that of a madman, 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


281 


He was at last roused from that terrible spell by the 
voice of Vivian, saying: 

“Violet Vavaseur is, indeed, Mademoiselle’s name. So 
you know her? Audrey will lead her to the marriage altar 
day after to-morrow. I just waited home long enough 
to be told so by mamma. Why, what is the matter? What 
is the matter with Mr. Davanant, Gladys, and yourself, 
too? Your faces are as white as my roses. You recog¬ 
nize in Mademoiselle Vavaseur a former acquaintance. 
What of that?” There was suppressed triumph in Vivian’s 
heart as she said this. She exulted in the little part that 
she was playing in a drama the seriousness of which she 
had never divined. Hers had been a blind role. She be¬ 
lieved that these people were believers in Violet’s guilt 
in committing a theft, and that she had been conse¬ 
quently proscribed by them. She felt a profound gratifi¬ 
cation in apprising them that one whom they had doubted 
and scorned, Audrey trusted, loved and was about to bring 
into the bosom of his family. 

Upon hearing these words Mrs. Davanant excitedly 
grasped the arm of her brother-in-law. 

^ “Oh! my dear,” she cried, “do not stare like that.” 

But Davanant remained rigid, his eyes fixed toward the 
carriage of “white violets,” a look in them that made all 
who saw it shudder, 

Audrey i Audrey—my brother! 5 ’ qriecfVivian, "Vio* 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


let! Mademoiselle—sister Violet! Ah! they do not an¬ 
swer, and yet I am positive that Audrey saw me, but he 
may not have recognized me. Now their carriage is shut 
out from view by those taller ones behind.” 

Vivian settled back on her seat, her eyes brimming with 
tears of disappointment. 

“You will have to return to the hotel alone, Gladys,” 
Davanant said, turning abruptly to his sister-in-law. “I 
am suffocated. I must get out of this.” 

She bade him go, saying she could easily find the way. 
She realized all too well the cause of his deep agitation. 

“What is the matter with him? He acts so strangely 
and looks so wild,” Vivian said, rather impatiently, as he 
left them. 

“Come away from here and I will tell you what is the 
matter,” Mrs. Davanant answered. “Come to my apart¬ 
ment at the hotel.” 

“No, you must go home with me,” said the young girl. 
“Come. I know where to find a carriage. You can tell 
me what the trouble is on the way to Casa Blanca.” 

Gladys’ was a mood of varied emotions, and uppermost 
there was a measureless sorrow and pity for her brother- 
in-law, whose love for Violet she knew to be one that ab¬ 
sorbed his whole life and being. 

During all the months of their travels Homer had 
mourned incessantly for the one whose fate was plunged 


AFTEIt THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


283 


in such unfathomable mystery to him. Gladys, with 
health somewhat repaired and heart in a manner resigned 
to its own bitter bereavement, had gradually been roused 
to a consciousness of the great sacrifice which he was 
making in remaining away from the scene where he might 
be actively employed in strivingto recover his betrothed. 

Thus, one night in Venice, when they sat together 
watching the gondolas gliding hither and thither, laden 
with mirthful passengers, she had said to him: 

“Let us return to California, Homer. I am weary of 
travel. I long for home.” 

And he had heard her words with heart throbs so madly 


joyous that speech was rendered impossible. 

“Dear, self-sacrificing, patient soul,” Mrs. Davanant 
had said to herself, watching his transfigured face. “I 
cannot credit my own selfishness in having condemned 


him to this long martyrdom.” 

After she had bid him good-night and left him Homer 
had remained on the veranda until all sounds of carnival 
were hushed from the waters below him, and never was 
mortal prayer more ardent than that in which he implored 
the ruler of all destinies to grant that when he again set 
foot upon his soil the days would be few ere he was recon¬ 
ciled to Violet. 

And he Lad found her thus, so soon and unexpectedly 


—the betrothed of another! 



284 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


On their way to Casa Blanca Mrs. Davanant related 
to Vivian the story relative to Mademoiselle Vavaseur’s 
past intercourse with her family, and, though it pained her 
almost beyond the power of utterance to touch upon the 
wicked spot in which her sister had involved herself against 
the young French girl, she did so, avowing her own and 
Mr. Davanant’s unshaken faith in Violet’s innocence 
from the first. 

“If Violet had not left Heartsease as she did,” con¬ 
tinued the speaker, bitterly, “I feel certain that the sub¬ 
sequent dark events would never have happened: My 
darling Natalie’s death, my unhappy sister’s abandon¬ 
ment of the world. Seeing our steadfast faith in the in¬ 
tegrity of her whom she had undertaken to injure, I be¬ 
lieve that Miriam would have acknowleged her sin, and 
resigned herself to her heart’s disappointment after Homer 
"and Violet had married and gone out of her life for a 
time.” 

Gladys paused, and after a mojnent’s silence Vivian 
observed in a troubled tone: 

But I cannot conceive how Violet, loving Mr. Dava¬ 
nant, even though she believed that he had lost faith in 
her, could so soon have engaged herself to my brother. 
There is but one,true love and that is deathless.” 

“I will not assume that Violet did love Homer, but if 
she loved him at that time T believe the sentiment has 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


285 


endured even through these months of misunderstand¬ 
ing and estrangement,” answered Gladys. “One thing, 
however, I can faithfully assure you, Vivian,” she added, 
her eyes growing moist, her lips trembling. “Should their 
separation prove to be a lasting one Homer will hence¬ 
forth be without an incentive to live. You cannot con¬ 
ceive all that Violet is to him. He fairly worships her- 

Now, dear, I will listen to you. I am puzzled to know 
how Mademoiselle came to be engaged as companion to 
your mother?” 

“Well,” responded Vivian, “I must begin by telling you 
that Audrey saw Mademoiselle Vavaseur first at Hearts¬ 
ease; it was on the occasion of Miriam’s garden party last 
summer. Some time afterward—several weeks, I should 
sa y —as he and mamma were driving on the heights south 
of Monterey, they suddenly happened upon Violet, where 
she lay, poor thing, unconscious, upon some rocks. 
Audrey at once recognized her and they brought her to our 
hotel, where, in her delirium she made known to us the 
unhappy circumstances under which she had left Hearts¬ 
ease, and we were confident she had been made the victim 
of a cruel plot. We urged her to continue with us, in the 
capacity of companion to mamma, and she promised, ex¬ 
pressing a wish that her whereabouts be not disclosed to 
those who knew her. We thought, as she did, that her 
fate was of no Importance to you, and so we readily agreed 


286 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


to keep her identity under the rose. Oh, my friend!” 
Vivian ended remorsefully, “we have all so misjudged 
you. Poor Mr. Davanant! What he must have suffered. 
What will be the outcome of all this misunderstanding 
and sorrow? Will you forgive me for the wrong that I 
have innocently done you?” 

“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. Davanant, pressing the 
importunate little hand that sought hers, “but,” a shade 
of rebuke in her voice, “how could you have so misunder¬ 
stood us? Oh, how could you?” 

They reached Casa Blanca to find the carriage of white 
violets standing vacant before the door, and Audrey just 
in the act of mounting a saddled horse. 

He greeted the ladies with elaborate cordiality, but his 
laughter seemed forced and out of tune, they thought. 

“You see,” he said, “I spied you at the tribunes, and 
afterward I took the first opportunity to get out of the 
line, and come home, knowing you would not stay long 
in that beastly mob. Didn’t you think it almost sacrile¬ 
gious for all that magnificent wealth of flowers to wither 
in the heat? How did you like ‘white violets?’ Swell, 
wasn’t it, eh? Lots of congratulations upon the artistic 
get-up of our cart—-whole oceans of them. Now, excuse 
me, will you? An errand uptown—important. You’ll 
find mother and Violet in the house.” And, dofflng his 
hat, Audrey threw himself into the saddle and was off at a 
furious gait. 

As had Davanant, he wished to get away to some place 
where he could think; also by a strange coincidence, like 
Davanant, he took the road toward the forest of Montecito. 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


287 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

“Halt!” repeated Davanant, panting and glaring like 
an infuriated animal as, with Herculean hand, he grasped 
the horse’s bit, bringing him to an abrupt standstill. Dis¬ 
mount!” 

Westphal complied with this peremptory command, 
trembling in every limb and as white as chalk. 

“Now,” said his assailant, approaching within a foot 
of him, “you miserable liar, you dastardly sneak, you 
worse than cur, I am going to kill you. 

“Wait, Davanant,” answered the young cadet, his teeth 
fairly chattering, his knees knocking together from ab¬ 
ject fright, “let us argue this matter rationally.” 

“The devil!” scoffed the other, ‘the situation is beyond 
reasoning, and a madman does not patronize philosophy. 
Ha! I am going to strangle you until that loose tongue 
of yours is black and stiff, and until your basilisk eyes 
start from their sockets, to be plucked out by buzzards. 
Ha! you consummate serpent!” With this Davanant 


290 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


sprang forward and closed his hand about the throat of the 
white-beflanneled youth. 

“For God’s sake, Davanant, consider—my mother!” 
Audrey gasped, huskily. His adversary uttered a low, 
guttural exclamation, and as he looked into the wavering 
eyes of the suppliant gradually his fingers unclosed their 
grasp of his throat. The next instant Audrey reeled back¬ 
ward and fell upon the ground from a heavy blow dealt 
upon his chest. 

“You plead,” said Davanant, standing there regarding 
his fallen victim with eyes full of hatred, “in the name of 
one whom I have always revered and one who dotes upon 
her ‘soldier boy’—ha! a likely soldier boy! For the sake of 
Mrs. Westphal, then, I will spare your life. Get up, you 
accursed cad, and if it is possible for you to speak the 
truth, tell me if you have been successful in winning the 
love of her whom you purloined from me by your devilish 
trickery.” 

Audrey rose from the ground and stood shivering like 
a whipped 'hound before his proudly erect opponent. 

“No,” he faltered, “I am certain that Mademoiselle 
Vavaseur does not love me. But I loved her to despera¬ 
tion. I was soon to have led her to the marriage altar, 
though well knowing that her heart was indissolubly 
bound to another—you—Davanant, and feeling myself 
unworthy to touch even the latchet of her shoe.' I forged 


f • 

* 


/ 





























f 






AFTEK TELE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


291 


upon her the evidence that you were soon to wed another. 
I deliberately planned to cheat both of you. I have been 
a traitor and a villain—what you will; but the prize that 
I played so recklessly for is now lost to me forever. The 
government is wanting soldiers—ah, you are cruel to scoff 
at me now. I shall go to the frontier, and there endeavor 
to retrieve some of my lost honor. Try to be a little com¬ 
passionate toward me, Davanant. Remember that my 
love for Violet was true—true as that which you yourself 
bear her. She has been in no manner contaminated by it. 
She is still the pure-white blossom that you took to your 
heart up there in the San Lucia mountains. Go to her,” 
and dashing away a tear, Audrey leaped into his saddle. 

“Say what you will, when you arrive at Casa Blanca,” 
he said ere he rode away, “but try to be charitable toward 
me. I am defeated. I am the most miserable being under 
the sun. Farewell!” 

Davanant stood motionless, watching Audrey until 
he had quite disappeared amid the trees, then he turned 
his steps back toward the town. 

As he went he noticed the beauty of the rural road-side. 
The tuft was rich and bright with wild flowers; the wide- 
spreading live-oak trees were festooned with grape vine 
and mistletoe, and cattle stood knee-deep in clover, graz¬ 
ing contentedly, their large, dark, wondrously soft eyes 
bent upon him as he passed. 




292 AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 

Despite his haste he stooped occasionally, and ere he 
realized it, he had gathered a large bunch of golden pop¬ 
pies. 

“I will give them to Violet,” he said, “as a fit emblem of 
the sunshine that has come back into our lives.” 

Meanwhile Vivian and Gladys, upon entering Casa 
Blanca, had found Mademoiselle Vavaseur lying in a deep 
swoon, from which she seemed destined not to revive, as 
over an hour passed and still she lay, looking, in her spot-" 
less robes, like a lily struck down by a ruthless wind blast. 

While they continued working over .her, well nigh de¬ 
spairing, Davanant crossed the threshold of the room. 

Gladys approached him quickly. 

“Go away, dear,” she said in a low, entreating tone, “go 
away for a little while. Violet has fainted. We are doing 
all that is possible to revive her. In a little while you 
may come to her.” 

“No, now; I must see her now,” he said, gently putting 
away his sister's detaining hand. Then he strode with¬ 
out sound toward the couch where the inanimate girl lay, 
all his golden poppies dropping and strewing the floor as 
he went. 

Falling upon his knees beside Violet, he lifted one of 
her limp, marble-cold hands to his lips, holding it there 
in a long, close pressure, while the others moved apart. 
Presently he felt the fingers growing warm, and noticed 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 


293 


a slight tremor pass over the features, upon which he 
gazed so eagerly, so prayerfully. 

“My love,” he whispered, bending so near that his lashes 
brushed her cheek. “Violet, my own dear delivered one, 
speak to me—open your sweet eyes and speak to me!” 

She heard his words, hovering on the dark confines 
’twixt life and death. 

Her eyes unclosed, and together, there in the dawning 
of a new and charmed existence, their united souls held 
communion with each other. 

EPILOGUE. 

That evening, previous to the time appointed for Violet’s 
meeting with Sisters Agnes and Celia at the church, Dav- 
anant sought an interview with Padre Baptiste, and the 
many lighted tapers in the chapel and the freshly garland¬ 
ed altar bore eloquent testimony as to what had been the 
nature of his errand there. The priest and two nuns sat 
waiting in the silent sanctuary, and when the doors softly 
parted to admit the little bridal party they advanced and 
met them at the altar. 

The bell in the tower tolled eight, and when its deep vi¬ 
bration had ceased, Padre Baptiste repeated the prelim¬ 
inary words of the Roman Catholic marriage ceremony. 
And the Blessed Virgin smiled down upon the two, who 
knelt amid the roses and ascension lilies to take upon 


294 


AFTER THE NIGIIT HAS PASSED. 


themselves the vows that bound them together “until 
death.” Near the chancel sat Mrs. Davanant, alone, for 
Vivian, who had entered with her, had glided noiselessly 
up to the organ-loft, there to sound the soft, sweet strains 
of “Thy True Heart,” as the ceremony proceeded. 

And as she played she reflected: 

“How noble and self-sacrificing was my darling brother 
to relinquish all claims upon Violet when he found that 
she loved Mr. Davanant better than himself and that by 
him she was first and faithfully beloved. I must embroider 
the dear boy a beautiful muffler before he goes away to 
the frontier, where he says he hopes to forget the brunt 
of his great disappointment in striving to achieve some 
honors as a soldier. He said in his note to mamma: ‘When 
they are married and gone away I will come and say good- 
by to you, darling mother, and Vivian.’ Ah! my broken¬ 
hearted mamma! She strove not to betray her grief as she 
fastened the strand of pearls about Violet’s throat to¬ 
night and wound the bridal roses in her hair, but I heard 
her murmur as she turned away: ‘Not to be my daughter, 
after all! and in losing her I have also lost the idol of my 
heart. Oh! Audrey, Audrey!’” 

The last strains of “Thy True Heart” died away, and 
Vivian lingered in the organ loft just long enough to dry 
her tears, then she went down, in time to hear Padre Bap¬ 
tiste’s words to the newly wedded pair: 


AFTER THE NIGHT HAS PASSED. 295 

“I will soon return home to Mexico, beloved, now that 
I have accomplished the object of my mission abroad, and ^ 
as Violet must go thence to possess herself of her inheri¬ 
tance I shall expect thee to pass a portion of the honey¬ 
moon at Colima.” 

“Were you aware, Homer, that I am very, very wealthy? 
Padre Baptiste has assured me it is so. Tell him about it, 
Father,” said the radiant bride." And as the priest en¬ 
gaged with her husband in low converse she turned to 
receive the congratulations of Vivian, Mrs. Davanant and 
the nuns, one of whom, Sister Agnes, said, after she had 
murmured her blessing: 

“There is one, a novice in our convent, my dear, who 
knows both you and your husband well, and who, upon 
learning that you were to be united, requested me to de¬ 
liver to you this message.” 

As the nun spoke she slipped into Violet’s hand a sealed 
envelope. Moving a little apart, where the light was 
brighter, she opened the message and read Miriam’s 
words: 

“I have duly atoned my sin, and am absolved. I speak 
your names in peaceful benediction, kneeling under the 
shelter of the Cross.” 


THE END. 










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